User:Shakescene/MoS-Talk

Species capitalization points

Parallel discussion of these and related issues will be found at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters

In an effort to standardize and synchronize:

• WP:Manual of Style#Animals, plants, and other organisms
• WP:Naming conventions (capitalization)#Organisms
• WP:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Animals, plants, and other organisms
• WP:Naming conventions (fauna)#Capitalisation of common names of species
• and WP:Naming conventions (flora)#Scientific versus common names
• as well as derivative, non-guideline instructions like WP:WikiProject Tree of Life#Article titles, etc.

It is proposed that the following points be integrated (in whatever prose form) at all of these documents:

1. The default is to begin each word in common (vernacular) names with lower case
2. except were proper names appear in them (or the word begins a sentence or list item – obvious exceptions).
3. This applies to all common names (families, orders, subspecies, etc.) not just species: "vertebrates", "the snakes", "European wildcat", etc.
4. Some editors prefer / WP:WikiProject Birds prefers / It is common practice at WP:WikiProject Birds to capitalize all parts of bird common names, except those immediately after a hyphen, in ornithology articles;
5. this remains controversial (a.k.a. there is no site-wide consensus that this is an acceptable practice, a.k.a. this is not consistently regarded as correct) and should not be used / is not recommended outside such articles.
6. Only one capitalization style should be used in any given article.

Amended per discussion below so far, with markup like this comment. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 09:50, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I believe this represents actual Wikipedia-wide consensus. In order: Point #1 has been MOS consensus since at least 2008, and stably so. WP:LOCALCONSENSUSes at subordinate guidelines and at WikiProjects does not trump this. Point #2 is just obvious. Point #3 is just obvious. Point #4 gives bird editors some breathing room, and correctly puts this in the context that WP:BIRDS have themselves advanced, as being a project-defined [would-be] standard for ornithology articles only.^[1]. Identifying these "some editors" as WP:WikiProject Birds by name in the guideline may seem "blamey", and the project (or WP:TOL, etc.) should not be cited as a guideline authority if mentioned, because it isn't one. No other active project has a written "guideline" that conflicts with the default, so no exception will be mentioned other than birds. Point #5 is incontrovertible; title case for species is consistently one of the most controversial and broadly opposed ideas on the entire wiki for 7 years running. Saying so explicitly is de rigeur for "hot button" issues in MOS, and most importantly defuses the already rampant and extremely problematic notion that we have a "well, plants and sloths and bacteria and whales can be capitalized too because a couple of editors like it" free-for-all, a problem that has been caused by vague and wishy-washy wording at some of the subguidelines which have been citing WP:BIRDS and WP:TOL pages and if they were guidelines, and dwelling upon projects that have a lack of local consensus, rather than applying the site-wide guidelines at MOS. The MOS has flatly rejected the "there is no consensus, projects can do whatever they want" idea in its explicit wording for over three years and in its talk archives every time the issue has come up since at least 2007.^{[2] [3]} Point #6 is dictated by our general principle of consistent style within single articles, was first articulated with regard to this issue in particular in 2006,^[4] and it of course defaults to lower case (by the nature of what "default" means, and by WP:BIRDS's own statements that they're only concerned about usage in the context of ornithology). 22:48, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose The MOS is for Style conventions, not to highlight conflicts. The idea that only SOME WP:BIRD editors are using Capitalized Bird Names is incorrect and is inserted just to weaken the strong case for Capitalization of Proper Nouns such as Standardized Bird Names. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 00:05, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Then how about we replace "some editors" with something more neutral, like "The capitalization of common names is the prevailing practice in WP: Birds, but this remains controversial"? Because 1. it is and 2. it does. I would not give "this remains controversial" as a fifth point. It should be combined with point four and point six should become point five.

Also, I would replace "an article" with "any given article." Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:38, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I can live with the change to WP:BIRDS, but the controversial remains a non-style statement, and has no place in the MOS. It would incidently be the only statement about something be controversial in the MOS. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 01:40, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The "controversial" is the part that must remain. It's the most benign way of saying "these guys are doing something that is not consistently regarded as correct; don't use these articles as a model for others." It is a style statement in that we are telling people what they should and should not do, stylistically, on Wikipedia. EDIT: Come to think of it, I could live with "but this is not consistently regarded as correct and not recommended for articles outside WP:Birds." That makes it a bit clearer that the MoS is providing instructions. Darkfrog24 (talk) 04:32, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Works for me. However its worded, the controversial/not agreed bit is completely crucial. The two main reasons to do all this at all have nothing to do with birds, but with stopping the proliferation of rampant capitalization of every mention of animals, and to get rid of the conflicting subguideline language that encourages projects to go off into left field and make up more exceptions. It's also normal in guidelines to use such "controversy" disclaimers, despite KvdL's unhappiness with it. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 08:01, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Darkfrog24: Actually I have an issue with "and not recommended for articles outside" the scope of the project, as it implies that the practice is recommended by MOS not just by WP:BIRDS for bird articles, with has actually been disputed for 7 years running. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 09:50, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Exception by itself says already that WP:BIRD is doing something different. There is no need to highlight that it is controversial/incorrect/etc. as a kick in the ass towards WP:BIRD as if they do something wrong. Because despite how often generic style purists want to make us believe that it is wrong, we are following the general convention for ornithology based publications. Why not state: "It is common practice at WP:WikiProject Birds to capitalize all parts of bird common names, except those immediately after a hyphen, in ornithology articles consistent with the consensus in the ornithology literature." This covers that it is an exception, and that it is based on what reliable literature in that field says about the usage, so it is up to other groups to show common usage of that field as well. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 12:58, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

WP:NOT an "ornithology based publication", QED. And it's not a consensus in ornithology lit, it's just a "growing trend" according to WP:BIRDS itself the last time this came up. And, frankly, WP:BIRDS is doing something wrong, in violating WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy to force all editors in a general encyclopedia for a general audience to use, against years of concerted protest, an ungrammatical style that was designed as a specialist convention by a specialist organization for use by specialists in specialist publications. There really is no away around these problems, no rug to sweep them under. The fact that MOS is entertaining mentioning, instead of ignoring, WP:BIRDS at all is a tremendous show of good faith that you've been spurning. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 19:28, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The points above don't say "exception" and I don't feel they should. That would imply that everyone got together and agreed that WP: Birds should use capitals in contrast to the rest of Wikipedia, when the truth of the matter is that it's a dispute that's never been settled. That's why terms like "controversial" or "not consistently regarded as correct" would be best.

Considering that the overwhelming majority of English-language style guides state or imply that capitalizing common names is incorrect, then stating "but this is not consistently regarded as correct" is actually treating your position very favorably. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:27, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Considering that the overwhelming majority of reliable sources dealing with any of the 10,000 plus bird species uses capitalization as the preferred style, this is not controversial. It is controversial to force lower caps on bird names contrary normal usage. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 15:18, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Unless the Chicago Manual of Style, the MLA handbook, various Oxford and Cambridge style publications, etc. are unreliable, then no, the overwhelming majority of reliable sources does not support capitalization. A source does not have to be specific to ornithology to be suitable for use within WP:Birds. If I'm writing an article about E. coli, then I will use sources such as microbiology journals and newspaper articles and style guides. For a general-audience publication like Wikipedia, lowercase for common names is "normal usage." If writing a guideline that stipulates something that isn't normal usage is controversial, then it is appropriate to use the term "this is controversial" in point five above. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:24, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Kim, it doesn't say "some WP:BIRDS editors" it says "some editors", i.e. WP:BIRDS. Please re-think what you've said above. (Aside: As a matter of fact, I've already found several cases, in my gathering index of relevant archives, of WP:BIRDS members not agreeing with the capitalization, but that's really not important to the question at hand.) Also, the MOS has quite frequently contained "it's controversial" or "it doesn't have consensus" statements when they were pertinent, and various guidelines still (and always) do at any given time. E.g. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Macedonia-related articles: "There is currently no clearly defined consensus about how to refer to the Republic of Macedonia in articles about Greece", as just one example. It's quite routine, really.— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 08:14, 9 January 2012 (UTC) Here's more: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/France & French-related: "Present English usage itself varies on how to spell such French forms and there is currently no consensus among editors on the issue...." Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Ireland-related articles: "...decided to leave the article on the island at Ireland and the article on the Irish state at Republic of Ireland until consensus changes." And so on. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 09:23, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Good, than you can have your exception added to the subpage called Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Animals, plants, and other organisms. I do not find any exceptions in the main MOS, or do you intent to add all those other exceptions as well to the main MOS article under the guise of synching? -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 12:58, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I would be delighted to have the main MOS simply mention the default and never mention birds at all. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 14:48, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I am glad you agree that you do not want your controversy exception mentioned at MOS. I think it bis a wise decision to keep mentiones of what is controversial to subpages and describe the current usage at the MOS, which includes that WP:BIRD articles are all using capitalized names. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 15:22, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

You did not read me correctly. I said I'd be happy with not mentioning birds at all on MOS proper, since what WP:BIRDS wants with regard to them is controversial; it would be fine by me to relegate all of that to a subpage, including that it is controversial. (I think you mean Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Animals, plants, and other organisms.) The fact that it's controversial must appear where ever any of the guidelines mention the birds "rule", because it is causing massive confusion and chaos all over Wikipedia as everyone capitalizes just about anything that ever mentions animals, following the birds example. I.e., no, you do not have agreement to pretend that WP:BIRDS's capitalization isn't controversial. We don't have to use the world "controversial"; there a whole thread below about what wording to use. PS: The fact that most bird articles use capitalized names is a fait accompli pulled off by your project's editwarring on the matter over seven years of frequent objections. That fact that you weren't collectively subject to a WP:ARBCOM case about it is actually pretty surprising, given that the ArbCom has previously condemned fait accompli attempts to force controversial consistencies across large number of articles. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 19:18, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

There's a big difference between "controversial" and "doesn't have consensus". "Controversy" is generally a "boo word"; the implication of saying that it's "controversial" is that it shouldn't be. "Doesn't have consensus" is a neutral statement. Further, in the cases you refer to where there isn't consensus, the result is that different editors can freely continue to use different wordings. This doesn't seem to be what you are trying to achieve. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:47, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

That's an inference, not an implication. I think "doesn't have consensus" sounds (on Wikipedia) worse. I'm happy to use that language, if it satisfies you, though. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 14:48, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

“Proper nouns” ? What proper nouns ? In emperor penguin or whatever blue-hearted tweeter bird name, there is not the slightest shadow of a proper noun !

--Nnemo (talk) 00:08, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support with minor changes: I would replace "Some editors ... controversial" with "It is common practice in WP:Birds to capitalize the common names of bird species, but this is controversial OR not consistently regarded as correct and should not be used outside WP:Birds." I would repace "an" with "any given." Darkfrog24 (talk) 04:49, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

It's hardly OR, and no more than one of "controversial" and "not consistently regarded as correct" is needed, if either is. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 05:04, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Heh—I assumed darkfrog meant the conjunction or, not WP:OR. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 05:24, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh. That IS amusing—at my expense. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 05:28, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

"You know you've been editing Wikipedia too long when..." FWIW, I initially parsed that as "original research" too. Heh. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 08:01, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

That is indeed what I meant. As long as people are tipped off that the capitalization of common names is controversial/not to be copied elsewhere in some reasonable way, then the guideline will serve. Also, let's note that if "this is controversial" appears as its own bullet point, it might look like it's referring to the entire list rather than just WP:BIRDS. 12:33, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

See clarification point below: These are meant as talking about, not actual guideline text. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 14:48, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

It's important to maintain the distinction that even WP:BIRDS only says to apply their "standard" to ornithology articles. Also, while I don't feel all that strongly about it, the point of the "some editors" language is that we regularly use phrasing like that in guidelines as a way of saying "the WikiProject on this topic" without a) appearing to "blame" or cast aspersions on the project by name or its participants or b) appearing to elevate the project by name as some entity empowered to create guidelines. Both of these are valid concerns, though I don't necessarily assert they're so important they must be accomodated. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 08:01, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support—I don't feel strongly either way about the "this remains controversial" part. It's probably fine to include it. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 05:24, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
• Clarification: These 6 points aren't meant to be the exact wording (which might need to differ a bit between the various guidelines, e.g. being more explanatory at WP:CAPS than the conciser version at WP:MOS), but rather key points that must be made one way or another regardless of the prose. I.e. the wording as of my last edit to the actual MOS page is an attempt to work all 6 points into clear language without resorting to either super-choppy bullets or buckets of prose. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 08:20, 9 January 2012 (UTC) I've updated the wording with <ins>...</ins> markup to reflect so wording alternatives. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 09:50, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
• Partly oppose My objection is that the MOS wording here is inaccurate and hence POV-pushing. It falsely implies that only within WP:BIRDS is there any use of or support for capitalized common names. Plant editors have agreed to differ, and create and edit articles using either style. Moth articles seem largely to use capitals, which appears to be the norm within lepidopterists (see as just one example the list at Geometer moth – I've linked to the current version as it may get changed by those opposed to capitals in common names now I've pointed it out). If what is currently written in the MOS had appeared in an article it would not be acceptable as WP:NPOV; it would be clear that it had omitted a significant (albeit minority) alternative point of view. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:39, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

How about "there is also some support for this in WP:Plants, etc."? As long as we don't have common name capitalization introduced to other articles under the assumption that it is required or supported everywhere. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:33, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

No, no, this has already been addressed several times. WP:PLANTS never came to a consensus. We cannot possibly include any kind of list of "projects that do not have a consensus on this" because that would be a list of almost every project on the system. The entire point of MOS is that it sets site-wide defaults. And the entire point of the WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy is to put a stop to the notion of random WikiProjects making up their own micro-consensuses on every topic under the sun because this leads to an unmanageable and embarrassing level of inconsistency. And the entire point of this synchronization effort is to provide actual guidance that matches the usage of almost every publication in the world: sentence case for common names. "Omitting significant minority points of view" on style matters from the actual practice of writing Wikipedia is what MOS exists for. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 14:29, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

• I think, one way or another, this needs to be settled. It's pointless to have a wishy-washy "some editors prefer this, some prefer that" as the only existing standard. The guidance should say clearly which common names are capitalized and which are not; otherwise it's failing to do its job. I support the proposal, except that we should sepcify all the categories (including "birds", "moths", whatever) for which the established practice is to use all-caps. Then any proposal to add or subtract any category to that list will require consensus. Style guidance shouldn't concern itself with describing mixtures of editors' points of view. If there's some area where established practice is not clear, then we need to establish one, one way or another (by a run-off vote, if necessary). Surely we can all see that having a consistent (or at least, a fully defined) approach is better than having the issue permanently up in the air.--Kotniski (talk) 12:58, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

There's no consensus for insects, either. Again, we cannot go around making random exceptions. The majority of editors that have ever commented on the matter oppose even making an exception for birds. Adding more exceptions on the basis that misc. editors here and there have their own capitalization preferences based on what a few journals do is an invitation to disaster, since it would set a precedent for allow any and all exceptions to the MOS based on what a handful of sources do as long as they are reliable sources for facts and have nothing to do with grammar. Having a "fully-defined" approach that permits a scattershot of miscellaneous exceptions for which there is not even consensus in the relevant projects would actually be worse than having no guidance, because it would effectively enshrine the idea that there isn't really a guideline, and everyone can do what they want. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 14:39, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I find it hard to work out how having full guidance would enshrine the idea that there is no guidance, more so than actually having no guidance would do... Look, it's a perfectly simple question - do we capitalize bird species names or not? RfC, discussion to identify the arguments on both sides, followed by poll. Result. Implement. Stop arguing about it. Same (in parallel) for moths, plants or any other category for which there is some genuine dispute about what the established practice is. --Kotniski (talk) 17:46, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The short answer: It's not a perfectly simple question, but a complex question and answer chain: Do we capitalize species names? No. Are there any exceptions: No, not according to general consensus; however one wikiproject insists on one and will argue everyone straight to the grave about it, and we're all tired of the fight, but site-wide consensus does not recommend the exception they demand, and all evidence says most editors and readers utterly hate it. Meanwhile a few other projects note various trends in their professional literature but hardly anyone thinks that has a thing to do with what Wikipedia should recommend in MOS, and they do not demand recognition of some kind of codified rule they've borrowed from a taxonomy organization, which the birds projects does. The longer answer: If MOS sets a default and notes that a controversy about that default's application in bird articles is still ongoing, that's not a big deal. We make note of such controversies and move on around them all the time. If MOS instead mentions an alleged default but then says not only do we do something different for birds (implies consensus that doesn't exist), misc. editors, some in projects some not, are uncertain about this and that and the other, and we just leave it up to editorial discretion, or project discretion or whatever, based on whatever random reasons people come up with... then we are not in fact setting any kind of default at all, not to mention we'd be effectively saying "ignore WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy".

It would be a major step backward. The default has been a default here in MOS without controversy since at least 2008, and all discussions here about animal caps have been increasingly not decreasingly in favor of lower case. The default isn't new. The other aspect of this is that uncertainty about what actual established practice is in science journals in a few areas besides birds (aside from being arguably irrelevant because WP does what generalist publications do, and cannot possibly account for every geeky practice in every field-specific specialist journal without utter chaos) has been unresolved for over 7 years, so we've simply moved on. It's entirely reasonable and normal to say "the MOS default applies there, too". Why would it not? I cannot think of any other area within MOS's scope where we decline to apply a general rule, like capitalizing place names, in one narrow field, like place names in Madagascar, just because some passel of editors on a talk page at a relevant project can't make up their minds locally whether the rule should apply there. Active, organized opposition by one project is dissimilar to noncommittal failure by another to decide whether something matters and what to do about it if anything.

— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 19:02, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

• In terms of what this proposal is, it is not meaningfully different from the previous one. It firmly establishes that sentence case is default (that title case is only for birds?), I assume under the assumption that there is a preexisting consensus. Then it flags WikiProject Birds as controversial, if not wrong. The rest is uncontroversial. Title case is (practically) never used for groups of organisms—for taxa above species rank. —innotata 16:38, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Scott McCandlish's broad principles make sense. But let's not make an exception for the birds. There may be a de facto exception in place presently — and things can change —, but let's not write in the guidelines an exception to the standard English rules.

And certainly no exception-in-exception in case of hyphen ! Instead of yellow-eyed penguin, I tolerate Yellow-Eyed Penguin, because I like animals. But Yellow-eyed Penguin is ugly, it is asymmetrical, inconsistent, it just shows a quite frequent illiterate habit in English.

Ah, those birdwatchers !

--Nnemo (talk) 00:08, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose I am new to this debate, and I hope I have absorbed enough of it to contribute here. As a copyeditor I certainly agree with WP's usage of sentence case in general, but I also think WikiProject Birds's special reasons for capitalising the common (species) names of birds, as explained in their guideline, make good sense. As they point out "in Australia there are many common starlings" does not mean the same thing as "in Australia there are many Common Starlings". This kind of ambiguity is resolved by using capitalisation in many other areas of Wikipedia, e.g. 'Great Britain has a Conservative Party' or 'Vaughn-Williams wrote A Sea Symphony' which would be confusing in lower case. If WP is to develop a good MoS we need more intelligent rules that allow for reasonable exceptions. --Kleinzach 00:51, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

  But those examples, like A Sea Symphony, are proper names, right? Question—if you agree with lowercase in general, what is different about birds? The starling/ambiguity thing is an issue for mammals, too, right? "There's a brown bear up ahead."—It might make a big difference if it is a brown U. americanus or a U. arctos! IOW, I don't see how this particular issue would support uppercase for birds and lowercase for other species. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 08:52, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

The common starling (type) versus common starling (adjectival starling) is kind of a weak argument. For one thing it's rare that the issue really exists (that context does not make it clear). In the few cases, that confusion exists, one can just be clear by extra wording. For that matter, if you really believe in this argument, you need to start capitalizing Chef's Knife or Virginia Ham or all manner of two word classes (not just birds). And no one does that.TCO (talk) 08:45, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose - The practice of WP:BIRDS, whether controversial outside the Wikiproject or not, is the current style used on Wikipedia and there is certainly no consensus to change that. If there is to be a MOS on common names of species ,it needs to acknowledge that bird common names are capitalized. It also needs to recognize any other areas where there is no consensus and carve those out until a consensus is reached for those specific items. Otherwise, there should not be a MOS for species common names. Rlendog (talk) 20:02, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

  Consensus has been reached for species common names, with a differing and controversial local consensus within WP:BIRDS. The WP:BIRDS style is not the current style on Wikipedia: if an article outside the WP:BIRDS project mentions the blue jay or the bald eagle, those names are rightly lowercased. It sounds like you agree with the proposal, although you disagree with the proposer on the WP:BIRDS style. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:21, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Let's find an inoffensive way to state that capitalized common names are controversial

The points in the main section outline the status quo: Lowercase common names for most of Wikipedia and capitalized common names for WP:Birds and those few other projects for which it has become the main practice. The purpose of these points is not to change the guideline but rather to make sure that all pages that discuss this matter say the same thing. The main block seems to be that the MoS regulars feel that the guideline should include some text stating that the consensus for capitalized common names exists on the Wikiproject level and not on the Wikipedia level. The purpose of such text would be to discourage other editors from using capitalized common names in projects for which that is not the status quo. The ornithologists feel that the guideline should not include anything insulting, "a kick in the face," as KimvdLinde put it. I'm confident that if we put our heads together, we can find a way of saying what we need to say without making anyone feel wronged. Please add to the list of suggestions below and place all comments at the bottom. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:45, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

"It is common/prevailing practice in WP:Birds (and WP:X, WP:Y...) to capitalize common names, but...

• ...this is controversial.
• ...this is not consistently regarded as correct.
• ...this is perennially disputed.
• ...this does not have Wikipedia-widelevel consensus.
• ...this contradicts the advice of general-English style guides.
• ...the propriety of this practice on Wikipedia is questioned.
• ...this practice is not fully endorsed by the Wikipedia Manual of Style.

• Also among our options: "and is not recommended for Wikiprojects for which it is not already the status quo."
• Also among our options: "The use of capital letters for the common names of bird species is tolerated in WP:Birds but not recommended."

What about:

• WP:BIRDS follows the consensus in the ornithology literature to capitalize common names of birds.

This says it what the exception is and why. It also makes clear that it is based on prevailing usage within the literature and not just a random choice made by the editors. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 15:27, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

It's not my favorite, but I could live with it so long as we added something to the effect of "but the use of this practice on Wikipedia is controversial/disputed/questioned/etc." Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:34, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

So, basically, just add to the MOS that the bird editors are stupid/whatever for following the prevailing usage in the relevant literature for birds? -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 15:42, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

We absolutely should not say that bird editors are stupid. That is the point of this thread. We need to find a way to say "capitalizing common names is disputed" without saying or implying that anyone involved in the debate is stupid. How would you say "this is controversial" if you didn't mean to imply "X is stupid"? Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:12, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

No, it is not controversial at all in bird literature. And article need to be based on the relevant literature. And that there are generic style guides who do not discuss the the situation about birds, then they are not a reliable source for birds, because the common names for the majority of species has never been standardized unlike birds. So yes, of course general style guides will discuss the general rule. In many cases, I am pretty sdure they have not even bothered to actually check some resources about birds to see there is a exception going on. So no, general style guides are NOT a reliable source to deal with smaller groups like birds especially when this is a very consistent usage within that group. Instead of trying to force a controversial statement into the MOS, lets think about the reality of the situation, and that is that Birds Are Capitalized, and find a way to mention this in nthe MOS in a way that is not going to give ammunition to editors of groups that do not have such a general established practice. If you look at the platypus caps discussion, you can see that I voted for LOWERCASE there exactly because there is no established official name list. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 23:38, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

No, it is not controversial at all in bird literature.

Again, Wikipedia is not bird literature. Do you deny that the practice is controversial here?

And article need to be based on the relevant literature.

Again, this conflates two very different concepts.

For factual information (e.g. a bird's migratory behavior), it's sensible to place greater trust in a specialist publication than in a non-specialist publication (such as a newspaper). But style is a separate matter. Reliable non-specialist sources overwhelmingly favor the use of lowercase styling for common names of birds. That persons knowledgeable on birds themselves use a different convention doesn't render this incorrect.

Please consider the ramifications of the argument that we must adhere to the style conventions used in specialist literature. Such publications' style decisions often reflect the needs and expectations of their specialist readerships (and not those of a general audience). For example, Variety's prose seems downright bizarre to someone expecting normal English. I'm fairly confident that you wouldn't advocate emulating its house style in Wikipedia articles about the entertainment industry. —David Levy 00:39, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, wikipedia is NOT bird literature. It is an encyclopedia that reports the information of topics as represented in the relevant literature. Even the Chicago Manual of Style realizes that. The problem is not the CMoS, but the editors of Wikipedia who want to enforce rules as ste in stone where style guides are actually more flexible. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 00:47, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, wikipedia is NOT bird literature.

So why did you attempt to refute a claim that something is controversial at Wikipedia by noting that it's "not controversial at all in bird literature"?

It is an encyclopedia that reports the information of topics as represented in the relevant literature.

The factual information. That Variety routinely refers to comedic films and television series as "laffers" doesn't mean that we must do so when covering subjects in its scope (apart from direct quotations, of course).

Even the Chicago Manual of Style realizes that. The problem is not the CMoS, but the editors of Wikipedia who want to enforce rules as ste in stone where style guides are actually more flexible.

Please see my reply in the relevant section (where I note that the "set in stone" arguments are emanating from WikiProject Birds). —David Levy 01:32, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

It's not a universal convention in ornithology literature, as even WP:BIRDS has admitted several times, it's a "growing trend" to quote from one of their own debates on this topic. We cannot mis-state the facts just to appease fans of title-casing. That would be blatant bias, against policy. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 16:11, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

So, because WP:BIRDS uses the official capitalized names as the norm for their articles, consistent with most of the relevant literature (yes, you can find a few exceptions within the bird relevant literature), this has to be mentioned as controversial in the MOS? It is just going to be a hook for repeated discussions that are not going to change the fact that bird literature does use caps. It only serves as a reminder that apparently WP:BIRD editors are stupid for following the conversion in their field and it does not serve the purpose of clarifying how species are named. What is needed is a descriptive of the practise at wikipedia, if necessary complemented with an explanation for the exception. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 16:18, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

No, it's controversial because it has generated 7 years of constant conflict. It is arguably the single most controversial would-be rule on the entire system. There is no controversy that the AUP prefers capitalization. There is great controversy over whether their preference has any relevance for Wikipedia and what we do in the best interests of the world's most general readership, and about what merits the rationales for that organization's preference may have. It is not the purpose of the MOS to be descriptive, but to be prescriptive. It is as descriptive as it can reasonably be within its mandate to provide a consistent, workable set of style rules for the entire system. But it isn't going to distort the truth to make you feel better, or hide the fact that there is controversy simply because you are on an uncomfortable side of one such controversy. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 17:07, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

No, it is controversial because people who have no knowledge about the bird conventions try to push a general rule on a group that has a very explicit and clear different way of Capitalizing. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 23:38, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

That's a completely vapid pseudo-argument, as well as incivil and an ad hominem attack. Just because people disagree with you doesn't mean they are ignorant (generally or of your field). The vast majority of editors, who have commented at any length against bird name capitalization over the last many years on Wikipedia are perfectly well aware that IOC and most (not all) ornithological publications capitalize bird common names, and what the espoused reasons are for this. There's no way to miss those facts, since they are basically the only ones at WP:BIRDS's disposal, and you and everyone else there who gets involved in this debate (a small handful, actually) do little but repeat them over and over like a mantra, as if saying them again will make it mean more. It's not that people don't know or don't understand about bird name capitalization. It's that you don't understand, or more likely pretend not to, that other editors, including other biology editors with very few exceptions, do not find IOC's rationales compelling in a general-purpose encyclopedia. Me, I have a deep herpetology background (though my degree is in anthropology), so if you think I'm not aware of nomenclatural issues like this, and used to specialist publications capitalizing things like Pacific Giant Salamander, you are sadly mistaken. I just know better than to try to apply a rule from a very narrow specialist context to a vastly broader, general one. PS: I repeat that your habit of misusing capitalization a "Form of Emphasis" strongly suggests that you do not fully understand the nature of this debate and why it is important to so many people, nor that you are undermining your own "cause". Capitalization is not for randomly making things stand out and seem important, the only purpose that is served by capitalizing animal names here. We have boldfaced subjects (Pacific giant salamander) in article leads and bright blue link text (Pacific giant salamander) for doing that. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 03:20, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Let's look at the definition of controversy: "dispute, argument, or debate, esp one concerning a matter about which there is strong disagreement and esp one carried on in public or in the press." We are having a dispute/argument/debate about this matter right now, so yes, it is literally controversial. The suggestion "controversial" should not be rejected on grounds of untruth. Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:14, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

What is controversial is the need of some editors to force generic rules on all pages. So, why not word it as

• "WP:BIRDS follows the consensus in the ornithology literature to capitalize common names of birds. Despite this well established convension, generic editors keep ignoring the facts and try to enforce generic lowecase to the articles"

That is what I see is the controversy. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 23:38, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Don't forget we have almost the same situation in MOS:CAPS#Celestial bodies. In Halley's Comet and Andromeda Galaxy, the generic parts are capitalized due to the recommendations of an insider organization, not due to common usage. In usage the capitalization in more common in astronomy pubs than in general pubs, but still not close to consistent. In general pubs, lowercase dominates. Same thing again in dog breeds, like Labrador Retriever and Basset Hound in spite of very mixed usage & [1]in sources. Also the subway in New York City: New York City Subway. All by local consensus. All controversial. Maybe if we mention them all together instead of singling out birds it will be less offensive; or maybe it will attract four times as many people to argue with your approach. Dicklyon (talk) 16:25, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I think that's a serious misinterpretation. Halley's Comet is capitalized according to the usual conventions of the English language, because it's a proper name. It doesn't have a "generic part"; the entire name is Halley's Comet, not Halley's by itself. --Trovatore (talk) 02:02, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I would distinguish all of these cases as being part of the general convention that identifiable places are proper names by default. Even the small ravine near where I live is universally capitalized as Bear Canyon or, in Spanish, Arroyo del Oso, despite being basically just a drainage ditch. There wouldn't seem to be a rationale for not capitalizing a place just because it's in outer space (cf. Jupiter and Pluto, not jupiter and pluto). Subway systems are capitalized more perhaps because they're systems, I don't know, but they seem to be universally capitalized: Paris Métro, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA), etc. It seems far less controversial. PS: No one is singling out birds; WP:BIRDS itself has long demanded recognition for its own "standard". The breeds/cultivars issue is another matter, with different rationales than species lower-casing. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 17:07, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Now I think you're just making stuff up. It's a stretch to call celestial bodies "places"; I've never seen that approach before. And "systems" are not generally capitalized; the BART and MARTA and Underground and Metro are because they have official proper names; the New York subway doesn't have such a name (see usage); neither does the Stockholm metro. Dicklyon (talk) 19:04, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

<shrug> I'm just offering what I think is a completely reasonable hypothesis for why we capitalize things like planets, comets, asteroids, etc. Given sufficient tech, you could literally go to them and walk on them. If that doesn't constitute a clear conception of "place", I'm not sure what does. Our moon, for example, has certainly been conceived of as a place people would go to in vehicles since at least as early as H. G. Wells's time, and now that we've actually been there and increasing number of people capitalize it as the Moon (no idea what CMOS, Harts's, etc. say about that). If the NYC subway system really has no name (which seems near-incredible to me), then I would definitely that the article be moved to New York City subway. I meant the examples I used are systems in the official, proper name sense (like Albuquerque Public Schools is the local school system vs. "the public school system of Albuquerque"), so we're actually in agreement on that one, just talking past one another. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 08:14, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

In English, in place names we capitalize the generic noun : Isle of Man, Mount Everest, the Pacific Ocean. It seems bizarre to me at first sight, but at least it is consistent. In French, the rule is consistently the opposite : l'île de Man, le mont Blanc, le lac Baïkal, l'océan Pacifique.

Paris Métro is awkward, but I tolerate it. We should choose. If we use the English word, then Paris Metro. If we use the French word, then Paris métro. Let's admit that, in Paris Métro, Métro is the French word used in the English way.

--Nnemo (talk) 00:08, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

As noted before, there is no other WikiProject than WP:BIRDS that has arrived at a consensus against the default. The notion that we need to mention insects or plants or whatever is a red herring that distracts from progress being made. WP:BIRDS's own case is that that "birds are special" basically: There is one unifying, "official" common name in English for every bird species. This is a unique situation that does not apply to plants or bugs or whatever. Detractors of title casing feel that this "officialness" is an irrelevancy, for clear reasons that don't need to be reiterated here; but make no mistake that it is the sole basis for WP:BIRDS seeking an exception to the sentence-casing default. The birds issue is not going to be settled here and now, and that's okay. But there is no basis for muddying the waters with the non-issue that sources about plants and whatnot do not have a consistent standard. The very fact that they don't is party of why MOS does have one. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 17:07, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Could we keep it to suggestions for wording in this thread? Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:14, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm trying to; people keep wanting to add exceptions for imaginary consensuses on bugs and plants. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 18:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I think I've figured out what's going on here. Those of us who are not in favor of using capitalized common names want to say "disputed/questioned/controversial" to make it clear that the practice on WP: Birds is not fully endorsed by the MoS. That's what we want to get across. The "Capitals are common practice on WP:Birds" protects existing articles from overzealous de-capitalization and "but this is controversial/whatever" makes it clear that the practice is nonetheless not fully endorsed. How do we get that idea across? Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:29, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

What do you mean by "fully endorsed"? If the MoS says it's done for birds, then it's saying it's done for birds. As long as it also says it's done differently for non-birds, it's clearly not recommending the bird solution for anything other than birds (or moths or whatever other specific exceptions it ends up making). It is hardly the job of the MoS to start trying to describe degrees of controversy (which is often hard to judge, given how a small percentage of total editors can make a huge amount of noise about something). The point of having an MoS is largely to settle disputes like this one way or the other (even if the solution is not to everyone's preference) so that encyclopedia-building can continue without the distraction of such controversies.--Kotniski (talk) 17:53, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I mentioned this above, but it got lost in the shuffle: We needn't describe degree of controversy to note that it exists. It's completely normal for MOS to do this: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Macedonia-related articles: "There is currently no clearly defined consensus about how to refer to the Republic of Macedonia in articles about Greece". Wikipedia:Manual of Style/France & French-related: "Present English usage itself varies on how to spell such French forms and there is currently no consensus among editors on the issue...." Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Ireland-related articles: "...decided to leave the article on the island at Ireland and the article on the Irish state at Republic of Ireland until consensus changes." And so on. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 18:22, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

It's my understanding that, strictly speaking, the common names of bird species should not be capitalized but we're settling for status quo because we can't stop the bird editors from doing what they think is right. So we're prepping a guideline that would read "This is done, but don't do it anywhere else." That's what I mean by "not fully endorsed." It's tolerated, not supported or recommended.

We need some kind of "controversial" or "not fully endorsed" to make it clear that this practice is only for birds. "We do this for birds," unaccompanied, begs the question "so why not for monkeys/chairs/etc?" Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:57, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, we can say it's because bird editors have so decided and explain why they have so decided (usage in the orni-literature). And we can say it's only for birds. That should cover all the bases. It is supported and recommended for birds (since it's the current consensus, just like all the other things on MoS which are not universally liked, like dashes and non-curly quotes and so on), so no problem with implying that much.--Kotniski (talk) 18:02, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

But it isn't supported and recommended for birds. That's the whole crux. Very few issues on Wikipedia have ever aroused so much consistent "Stop doing that! It's wrong" outcry all over Wikipedia as what WP:BIRDS insists on. What has happened is that everyone's simply worn out from debating it, and it is more expedient at this time to say that the birds project, or "some editors" or whatever phrasing, prefer that style for birds, in ornithology articles only, but that it's not a consensus position (i.e., it is controversial), and go about our business of making the rest of the encyclopedia consistent with normal English, maybe revisiting the still and always highly controversial birds issues some other time. By no means is this about declaring that there is a Wikipedia consensus in favor of bird capitalization. There's a general consensus against species capitalization, and a general consensus that fighting with the birds project is an impasse again, and a general consensus (an outright policy) that wikiprojects do not get to make up their own rules. That policy, WP:LOCALCONSENSUS obviates the "because [insert project name] editors have so decided" rationale. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 18:15, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

There's too much for me to follow here. What would "declaring victory" entail, particularly in terms of wording? —JerryFriedman (Talk) 05:02, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

The 6 points proposed above, in some form. The hard to follow mess has basically been a one-party effort against ever mentioning that what WP:BIRDS is doing is controversial in any way, and instead lobbying for MOS to essentially promote what WP:BIRDS is doing, rather than observe and report that it's happening and controversial. I think it's clear that there's no consensus to take such an extreme position. That would mean the next task is deciding what wording works best for the "controversial"/"no consensus" issue. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 08:03, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

But it would be silly and POINT-y and BATTLEFIELD-y for MoS to recommend (or suggest) doing something that we know goes against the established practice for birds. If someone were going to create an article about the cross-eyed booby, then we want them to use the title Cross-eyed Booby, to be consistent with all the other bird articles. It would serve no purpose to tell them that there are (some number of) editors who vociferously disagree with this practice (the same is true of many of the points in the MoS); and it would certainly be counter-productive to encourage them to title their article using lower case. If you want to change the practice (which I kind of agree would be a good thing) then start an RfC specifically about doing so, and see if a sufficient degree of consensus can be gained for diong so.--Kotniski (talk) 13:45, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

(Moved from Summary)

Darkfrog, I think this is an excellent summary. Here's a bit to add to it. I think the resistance being encountered is due to the phrase "but this is controversial". That can be misleading, as it is not controversial in bird-related publications. How about something like "but this is controversial outside bird-related literature" or "but this is controversial outside biological literature"? (Aside: this is also standard practice in mammal and butterfly ID guides. As much as some don't like it, the trend is spreading to other disciplines.) Natureguy1980 (talk) 15:39, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

1. Thank you. I worked hard on it.

2. "Bird-related publications" could too easily be interpreted to include the articles in WP:BIRDS, and the use of capital letters in WP:BIRDS is the subject of the current controversy. I also find that many forms of biological literature use lowercase species names, so it would not be appropriate to state or imply that it isn't controversial within biological literature.

How about "but this is controversial on Wikipedia"? I thought that was implied by the fact that it's a WP guideline, but I have zero problem saying it straight out. I've supported adding the words "on Wikipedia" before. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:44, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Darkfrog, I disagree that "bird-related publications" could possibly refer to Wikipedia, as it is not a publication. As a compromise, how about something like "but this is controversial outside specifically bird-related literature, of which Wikipedia is not a member"? Natureguy1980 (talk) 17:35, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

We've been referring to Wikipedia as a publication throughout this conversation.

Why say "of which Wikipedia is not a member" when one could just say "this is controversial on Wikipedia"? Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:18, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I think what's getting me about mentioning ornithology journals is that we don't want people copying specialists left and right. If we say "WP:BIRDS does this because ornithology journals and bird watching guides do this" then what's to stop other editors from randomly copying specialist sources? No, we should not say anything that could be interpreted to mean that a specialist consensus outside Wikipedia automatically trumps WP:MoS. Bird editors had to fight for years to get their status quo. Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:20, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I just think it's important to tell the whole story. The truth is, this is not controversial among Wikipedians who edit bird articles. That's why I don't like the statement as you've written it. After all, that's why WP:BIRDS has adopted the position it has: it is not controversial among "bird people". I'm not sure how to convey that in a way that will satisfy both sides. You've apparently been trying for a long time, no? How about, "this convention, while adopted by WP:BIRDS (and other bird-related literature), is controversial on Wikipedia"? Natureguy1980 (talk) 18:56, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

OTOH, the recurring nature of the discussion, even among editors who edit bird articles and members of WP:BIRDS (which are different but overlapping sets of people) indicates that it is controversial even among Wikipedians who edit bird articles, not all of whom are B&Os. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:07, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Hm, I think we're making progress. That's what the term "Wikipedia-level consensus" is supposed to mean; that there may be some consensus, a local consensus, but that it isn't a Wikipedia-level consensus.

"The use of capital letters for the common names of bird species, while the prevailing practice on WP:BIRDS (following the practice of ornithology journal articles), is controversial on Wikipedia." Hm, we don't want people to interpret that as permission to go in and change capitals to lowercase... "The use of capital letters for the common names of bird species has local consensus within WP:BIRDS (following the practice of ornithology journal articles), but this is controversial on Wikipedia." Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:19, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Looking good, Darkfrog. May I offer this slight tweak? "The use of capital letters for the common names of bird species has local consensus within WP:BIRDS (following the practice of both professional and nonprofessional bird-reated publications), but this is controversial on Wikipedia." As written, the last version could be read as meaning that only ornithological journals use this convention, but it is present in both professional and nonprofessional works, including books--not just journal articles. Sorry for being picky, just want to be as clear as possible to help reduce potential future drama! Natureguy1980 (talk) 23:28, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Shorten "the practice of both professional and non-professional bird-related publications" → "the practice of bird-related publications"? -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:12, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Nope. "Bird-related publications" could be interpreted as including Wikipedia articles. Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:24, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I disagree, but I don't wish to fight about this. Natureguy1980 (talk) 00:38, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Ha ha! That's the whole reason that MoS regulars are okay with even implying that WP:BIRDS has an exception to the capitalization rules. We know we can't stop you. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:48, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Re: Nope. If "bird-related publications" can be interpreted as including Wikipedia articles, then so can "both professional and non-professional bird-related publications", unless you feel that Wikipedia is a third class outside "professional" and "non-professional". -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:38, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I was thinking about that phrase last night, actually, largely because the MoS has a lot of length-snippers. "Ornithology books and journal articles" would cover most of the publications that are intended by "professional and non-professional ornithology publications." Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:51, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I believe the issue there is "ornithology", which apparently does not encompass birders and their pubs. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:05, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

"Ornithology journals and birdwatching books." Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:49, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I do like the "de facto" that was just mentioned. "Although the de facto capitalization of the common names of bird species has local consensus at WP:BIRDS (following the practice of academic and non-professional ornithology publications), this is controversial on Wikipedia." Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:24, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Maybe "the practice of some bird-related publications". There are exceptions, like this nice book and this one and this one. Dicklyon (talk) 00:28, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd be cool with "some," but I've been getting the impression that "most" would be more accurate. Also, how to people feel about a Wikilink to local consensus? "Although the de facto capitalization of the common names of bird species has local consensus at WP:BIRDS (following the practice of most academic and non-professional ornithology publications), this is controversial on Wikipedia." Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:32, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

"Most" is without a doubt accurate. "The vast majority" would also be accurate in my experience. Of the many hundreds of sources I pore over every year, only one or two will not follow this convention. "Some" is not appropriate in my opinion, as it suggests the topic is controversial in the sphere of birding and ornithology--it is not. Darkfrog, I have only one small concern with what you suggested above. Namely, the usage of the phrase "common name", which is itself controversial among ornithologists because it implies there is no accepted standard. "English name" or "English-language name" is, however, not controversial to my knowledge. I propose the following: "Although the de facto capitalization of the English-language names of bird species has local consensus at WP:BIRDS (following the practice of most academic and non-professional ornithology publications), this is controversial on Wikipedia." I thank everyone involved in this thread for their civility. Natureguy1980 (talk) 00:46, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Regardless of whether "common name" is controversial among ornithologists, it isn't controversial among Wikipedia readers. However, I don't see why English-language name would be controversial to anyone, so *thumbs-up.* Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:48, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Great! What's the next step? Natureguy1980 (talk) 03:07, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

"Most" might be true, but "the vast majority" is not, I think, based on how easy it is to find counter-examples with gbs. Like this search where 6 or 10 recent bird books say "the Canada goose"; or this one where 7 or 10 have "the green-winged teal". Dicklyon (talk) 01:23, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Dicklyon, in your second example (I confess to not looking at the first), the sources that don't capitalize are 1) about painting duck decoys, 2) part of a naturalist library, 3) about wildlife and resource management, 4) part of a general wildlife encyclopedia, and 5) part of a general wildlife book. Of those, I contend that only 2 is an "ornithology publication". It's also slightly unfair to use the phrase "the green-winged teal", because when bird names are capitalized, the definite article is not always used, as with many proper nouns. I couldn't find an example right away with "Green-winged Teal", but here's one with [Virginia's Warbler]. Usage of the definite article even varies within the same source! Natureguy1980 (talk) 03:07, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, I can stipulate that these aren't representative of the hundreds of books that you pore over every year; but they are "bird related" publications. Dicklyon (talk) 04:16, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Which still doesn't matter. Wikipedia is not a bird related publication, it is a general one and like all other encyclopedias, as well as virtually all dictionaries, newspapers, non-birder books, magazines, and general (i.e. not exclusively ornithological) zoological and other scientific journals, it should not adopt an ungrammatical convention that makes Wikipedia look like it's edited by children who can't spell properly. It boggles the mind that this concept is so hard to get across to certain people. Look folks, I like pool (in the billiards sense) a whole lot. A real boatload of pool books, probably a majority of them love to capitalize the crap out of everything pool players think of as important and distinct. "The Game of 9-Ball", "a Snooker Cue", "a Billiard Table". That doesn't make it right and it doesn't mean that Wikipedia should do this in cue sports articles. It makes us look unprofessional and collectively stupid. I have no problem at all with bird field guides and some but not all bird journals capitalizing common names of birds. I don't write nasty letters to Billiards Digest about their abuse of the English language either. I chalk it up to the fact that specialists, from doctors to lawyers to footballers to herpetologists just can't seem to stop capitalizing stuff they care a lot about. In their specialist, insider publications that no one but them care about or see. And ever time I see them do it in a Wikipedia article I correct them, regardless of the topic. I don't know why bird fanciers are willing to fight with the most un-damned-believable level of mendacious, tendentious tenacity for over seven years to have some magical exception, like God herself came down and granted them a right to make up their own grammar rules. Enough is enough. This is not Birdipedia. If a handful of members of WP:BIRDS is going to continue to fight to the death over this, and MOS is going to mention the exception they demand, against broader consensus, this has to be noted as controversial. Anything else would be a blatant damned lie. I appreciate Dicklyon's work to dispel the idea that all birder/ornithologist publications capitalize – it should be dispelled, and I've already linked many times to WT:BIRDS discussions admitting that the practice is not universal in those circles – but it's really a red herring to think that we actually need to dispel that idea in the first place. It's simply not relevant. Wikipedia should do what encyclopedias do, because it's an encyclopedia, not a bird field guide and not The Auk. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 05:52, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Chicago manual of Style

So, what does the often mentioned Chicago manual of style actually have to say about this:

• "For the correct capitalization and spelling of common names of plants and animals, consult a dictionary or the authoritative guides to nomenclature, the ICBN and the ICZN, mentioned in 8.118. In general, Chicago recommends capitalizing only proper nouns and adjectives, as in the following examples, which conform to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary".

What do we have here. First of all, CMoS yields to dictionaries and the ICBN and ICZN. The ICZN does not regulate common names, so it is weird for the CMoS to refer to them for common names. But, what is important is that they recognize that there are external sources that have something to say about this contentious topic. That leads to the next section:

• Q. At one time, the location of a publisher could be used to get a phone number via directory assistance. This is no longer how anyone would do it, and publishers have frequently moved, been acquired, and so forth, so the location is often highly ambiguous. Authors spend tens of thousands of hours annually looking up or making up publisher locations. I’m staring now at a copy editor’s request that I identify the location of Cambridge University Press—and the editor says it is because you insist on it. Can you give me any sane reason for this collective expenditure of effort and print in 2012? It would make me feel better, as it feels like an empty ritual of no contemporary value, engaged in by a field that is unaware of the digital era. Insistence on archaic rules brings to mind the replicant lament in Blade Runner, “Then we’re stupid and we’ll die.”
• A. We are so misunderstood! CMOS is not in the business of insisting on this or that. From our very first edition in 1906 we have stated very clearly that “rules and regulations such as these, in the nature of the case, cannot be endowed with the fixity of rock-ribbed law. They are meant for the average case, and must be applied with a certain degree of elasticity.” As for place of publication, in scholarly research it can be useful in tracking the development of the literature within a discipline (especially in instances where publishers are old and obscure). In fact, it’s not unusual for an academic to write a bibliography that includes only the place of publication for each work cited, without the publisher. When that happens, the editor or publisher must decide whether to require more information.

So, what we have here is that the CMoS explicit states that their rules are not set in stone and that you should follow conventions as they are within specific fields. They themselves explicitly yield to external sources for the proper spelling of names. So, if anything, the CMoS does not dictate that all names should be lowercase, but indicates that it is appropriate to be flexible when the convention within a field differs from their rules. Ergo, what WP:BIRS is doing by following the authoritative guide to bird names is what the CMoS suggests us to do. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 00:39, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay, so CMoS says "refer to dictionaries." Dictionary.com uses lowercase for "starling," "harpy eagle" and "white-throated sparrow."

Yes, Chicago allows for exceptions, but WP:Birds hasn't proven in a concrete way that an exception is merited. For example, in American English, periods and commas are supposed to go inside adjacent closing punctuation marks ("like this.") A clear and overwhelming majority of American English style guides state this; it's what's taught in schools; it's what 99% of American English documents actually do. However, many American literary criticism and computer programming journals prefer the British style, in which periods and commas are placed according to sense. This is because they discuss punctuation and strings literal, respectively, in such a way that correctly tucked closing punctuation might cause confusion. So, in these two branches of academia, you'll see an exception to prevailing American English rules. WP:Birds has cited no such practical basis for its capitalization practices.

That's why we talk about style guides plural. We're looking at all the reliable sources rather than just a narrow subset. If the overwhelming majority of English language style guides and publications either recommend or use lowercase, then Wikipedia should too.

We've been talking in circles for days here. What SmC's points actually do is describe the status quo. They take bird editors' preference for capital letters and they state it in the guideline. That will protect articles in WP:birds from being converted to lowercase by overzealous editors. By stating that this practice is controversial/questioned/not universally regarded as correct, it protects articles outside of WP:Birds from capitalization by those same overzealous editors. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:22, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Cherry picking is an art. CMoS states also: "or the authoritative guides to nomenclature". Anyway, could you pealse direct me to those many other style guides. I would like to poick them apart as well just like what I did with the CMoS that actually supports the WP:BIRD position. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 01:26, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

But what we've been talking about this whole time is which guides should be considered authoritative and in what context.

Chicago is the big one. Some of the others, in no particular order, are the MLA Style Guide, the Style Guide of the American Psychological Association, Style Guide of the American Medical Association, Style Guide of the American Chemical Society, Fowler's Guide to English Usage, and New Hart's Rules. There is a longer list here at Style guide. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:31, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

No one asserts that style guides' rules are set in stone. Their recommendations are intended to reflect common usage (just as those of the MoS are), frequently are updated in accordance with real-word changes (e.g. when the AP Stylebook switched from "Web site" to "website"), and may be followed or ignored as each individual publication deems fit.

"In general, Chicago recommends capitalizing only proper nouns and adjectives," but it recognizes that no convention is applicable to all contexts and defers to specialist authorities when appropriate. "When appropriate" = "when writing for a specialist publication/audience or in a context in which its conventions are relevant".

We aren't citing style guides because they make the rules. We're citing them because they expertly compile the rules most widely followed in professional publications (general ones in the case of general style guides). The situation isn't "x is true because y says so"; it's "y says x because it's true". Reliable non-specialist sources overwhelmingly favor the use of lowercase styling for common names of birds.

Frankly, the "set in stone" arguments are emanating from WikiProject Birds. —David Levy 01:32, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, I am glad we can agree that style guides are not set in stone. So, now that we have solved that issue, we can remove the strawman argument that the style guide dictate lower case for bird names. And as I have shown here, the CMoS even refers to authoritative guides, which is exactly what WP:BIRD is doing. What is controversial is that WP editors do not like that. And that is the controversy, not that WP:BIRDS follows the rules of the game. As such, the continued insistence to kick the WP:BIRD editors in the ass because they are not willing to bow to the dictate of the generic editors has to stop. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 02:31, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm glad we can agree, then, since style guides are not set in stone, that everyone is free to disregard IOC's and WP:BIRDS's and write proper English again in bird articles. (Sarcastic and haughtily dismissive pseudo-logic works both ways.) — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 02:57, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Huh, no. You seem to confuse Style Guide with Authoritative Guide for names. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:03, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Missing the point entirely. You're trying desperately to cite IOC as a style guide as well as fact guide. If you hold that style guides can be ignored, then IOC can be ignored as a style guide (even if it has be considered reliable for nomenclatural facts, like the fact that the common name "Mexican jay", styled with title case or not, is and only is equivalent to Aphelocoma wollweberi and no other species binomial and vice versa.) QED, checkmate, please drive through. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 03:27, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

No, not missing the point, and thus not checkmate. Authoritative guide does not imply lack of authority over style. CMOS refers to them under the Capitalization of Animals and Plant Names! They yield. Not the other way round. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:35, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Defiantly putting your king back on the board doesn't mean the game didn't end. Everyone else on this page understands that you've contradicted yourself into a corner, even if you won't face it. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 03:42, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

You can proclaim what you want. That is your choice. It works with some people. They will feel intimidated. I see its a sign of weakness. And as for you edit summary, glad you bailing out, Maybe the more sensible people can finish this discussion. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:46, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

That you put this in terms of combat instead of game play says much more than you think. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 03:51, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Not at all, I see this as a discussion based on merrits. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:54, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

No one here trying to insult you or other WP:Birds editors in any way. We just don't agree with you that a set of rules meant for specialist publications is appropriate or necessary in a general publication. Just because CMoS admits that common English rules don't apply to all situations doesn't mean that they don't apply to this one. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:44, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Speaking for myself? I do happen to dislike excessive capitalization, but the overwhelming majority of English language style guides agree that non-proper nouns should not be capitalized in ordinary prose. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:46, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, I am glad we can agree that style guides are not set in stone. So, now that we have solved that issue, we can remove the strawman argument that the style guide dictate lower case for bird names.

You're conflating two separate concepts and throwing out the baby with the bath water.

Style guides don't "dictate" anything. As noted above, we aren't citing them in that context; we're citing them as authorities on the subject of common usage.

And as I have shown here, the CMoS even refers to authoritative guides, which is exactly what WP:BIRD is doing.

Again, you're ignoring context. The distinction between specialist and non-specialist publications is very real. I'm not aware of any style guide that recommends the use of specialist style conventions (where they differ from non-specialist usage) in non-specialist contexts.

What is controversial is that WP editors do not like that.

One could say the same about members of WikiProject Birds and their opinion of the convention overwhelmingly favored outside of their circle. But whom to blame (if anyone) for the disagreement is irrelevant to the question of whether the matter is controversial.

And that is the controversy, not that WP:BIRDS follows the rules of the game.

Wikipedia is in the "general-interest encyclopedia" game. WikiProject Birds follows the rules of a different game. (If you disagree, please cite some reliable non-specialist sources that routinely capitalize common names of birds.)

This, of course, doesn't necessarily mean that WikiProject Birds is wrong. But even if we assume that it's sensible for Wikipedia to follow its preferred convention, this remains an unambiguous exception to our normal style rules (as members of the WikiProject have acknowledged).

As such, the continued insistence to kick the WP:BIRD editors in the ass because they are not willing to bow to the dictate of the generic editors has to stop.

I'm sorry that you perceive good-faith disagreement in such a light. —David Levy 03:17, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Very cogent analysis, David. Another thing is that CMOS doesn't make sense on this one in more than one way when it says: "For the correct capitalization and spelling of common names of plants and animals, consult a dictionary or the authoritative guides to nomenclature, the ICBN and the ICZN." It's not just that they've suggested organizations not relevant to the matter, the entire thing is confused. No dictionary can tell you what the common name of Notophthalmus viridescens is, only how to spell "eastern" and "newt" and whether they are proper names by themselves. I don't think any dictionary in the world has "eastern newt" in it, capitalized or not. Webster's Third New International, which I think is the second-largest print dictionary of English after the OED, does not (notably, it does have "eastern kingbird" and "eastern larch", lower case). Meanwhile, taxonomic organizations theoretically (maybe CMOS can be forgiven for picking ones that don't deal with common names much) are a proper source for what those names are and for the spelling of scientific names, but are not authoritative on grammar rules like proper nouns and capitalization. CMOS basically just brainfarted really badly on the entire thing. The guide's guidance on this particular topic basically cannot be parsed as meaningful. I've looked through several others at my disposal, and they simply don't address the issue, probably because common usage is so overwhelmingly anti-caps that they didn't feel they needed to. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 02:57, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Good, so we have the CMoS, which was touted as THE authoritative guide, brainfarting. Interesting how it first is used against a whole group of editors and when it turns out that it does not support the assertion made all along, it is brainfarting. I call that special pleading based on I don't like it!!!!!. And as cherry on the cake, "they simply don't address the issue". So much for being a reliable source. NOT. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:07, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Again, no one has cited The Chicago Manual of Style in the manner that you claim. That's the straw man. —David Levy 03:17, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Right. I certainly never did. All I've ever heard anyone reasonably say about it on this issue is that it defers to dictionaries. The ICZN bit is just "noise". — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 03:33, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm beginning to get the feeling we're just feeding something here and should stop responding, declare victory per the "Wikipedia is not a filibuster' principle, and move on, because all the arguments rapidly turn circular (at best) with this party. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 03:33, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Are you suggesting to just strong handle this discussion? -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:41, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't know what that means. What I am suggesting is that you are intentionally filibustering instead of working toward consensus, and that a consensus clearly exists that capitalizing common names of animals is controversial (a.k.a. is something that a majority of sources and editors believe is incorrect a.k.a. does not have site-wide consensus a.k.a. however else it can be phrased). I'm further suggesting that something to this effect should clearly be added to the guidelines over your objection, because your objection has yet to demonstrate or try to demonstrate that the controversy does not exist; rather it is motivated by strengthening the apparent position of WP:BIRDS in the guidelines, at all costs, and you clearly will not be satisfied by any wording that does not blatantly promote WP:BIRDS and its idea as a good and well-accepted one, which simply cannot happen because it isn't true. Ironically, the effect all this is having is making the WP:BIRDS position look increasingly irrational and indefensible, when it wasn't really under attack in this guideline synching endeavour to begin with. We were going out of our way to accommodate the project and its quirks. I think a number of editors are now much less inclined to do so. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 04:41, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Consensus and "declare victory" are not compatible. So, what is it going to be? -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 04:53, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

P.S. I am still a person, not a something. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:42, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I didn't call you a thing. I'm referring to what seems to be a monstrous maw of circular reasoning, ever hungry, that eats everything in its path, that you are using to waste everyone's time. Every argument you have raised has been repeatedly addressed by multiple parties, but you continue to say the same things over and over again. It's pointless. A lone editor being tendentious cannot, per WP:CONSENSUS, stop everyone else from coming to a consensus and proceeding. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 03:46, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Than please explain where the thing in this sentence was referring to: "we're just feeding something here".-- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 04:14, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Repeat: "I'm referring to what seems to be a monstrous maw of circular reasoning, ever hungry, that eats everything in its path, that you are using to waste everyone's time." I honestly don't believe you are trolling, but the effect is very similar. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 04:19, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Nobody asks you to stay in the discussion. You can leave anytime you want. But you seem to be so set on codifying the controversy into the MOS. The simple way out is to drop that and just document practice and underlying arguments and leave it to that. Really, if your purpose was to sync things, the fastest way would have been to just do that. And that would have been exactly the same as what printed style guides do. I cannot change that you chose differently. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 04:46, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I'm sure that you would like to see MOS enshrine what WP:BIRDS is doing as something with system-wide consensus, but that would be nearly the furthest thing from the truth. Leave the discussion? I'm trying to steer it somewhere useful. You don't jump out of a car you're trying to get somewhere in. This is the second time you've suggested I just go away. That's not a very convincing rhetorical position. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 08:39, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Rant

Rant follows:

The more I read the discussion the more it seems to be that this is some sort of vendetta to "rein in" the belligerent know-it-alls who dare to go against the all-powerful MOS. In effect turning this into a personal battle of WikiProjects against WikiProjects when nothing could be further from the truth. As already pointed out repeatedly, the conventions exist outside of Wikipedia. The members of the affected WikiProjects are following the respective conventions of their respective fields. None of them are doing it just to thumb their noses at the more "mainstream" Wikipedia editors and continually implying it is so is extremely insulting. In particular the accusations of entire WikiProjects exhibiting WP:OWN is ridiculous. That's like saying the ornithologists or botanists or lepidopterists who are painstakingly standardizing common names are doing it for shits and giggles.

This isn't a "me layman, you specialist" type of argument, so drop the indignated act at how dare these WikiProjects subordinate already. We are all Wikipedians, none of us are acting as specialists here.

And a very prevalent false assumption here is that various specialist fields are somehow answerable to a higher power of generalists who dictate what should be. You couldn't be more wrong. A consensus within a specialist field is far more binding than a consensus within the general scientific community.

Again, the default in biological sciences is not to legislate any conventions whatsoever when it comes to common names. In short, there is no rule that says common names should be in sentence case, as far as I know. I challenge anyone to go dig something up from the nomenclatural governing bodies of the different fields. And please, not something completely unconnected to biological sciences like CMoS. That's like going to an Ichthyologist to get your tooth pulled out.

On the other hand, there are certain specialist groups that do impose conventions on common names for perfectly valid reasons - to avoid the inevitable confusion that follows when a name is unregulated. This must be respected. The fact that there are naming codes for binomina stems from the very same reason - to avoid confusion over which biologist is referring to what species.

Furthermore, yes this is a general encyclopedia. Does that make it okay to sacrifice scientific accuracy simply so the pages look prettier? Ugh. Priorities indeed. The academia already looks down on us for this very same reason, now we're actually legislating the dumbing down of Wikipedia. You may not notice it if you misspelled a scientific name or failed to italicize it (both of which someone here was guilty of in this very discussion), but those that do notice it immediately know that this person should not be talking about anything related to biology.

Think of it like Fox News, putting Egypt in the middle of Iran and Syria. Those who don't know their geography (which will be the majority) will just continue nodding their heads as the newscaster increasingly makes an idiot of him/herself. Does that mean the channel was justified in not putting extra care with their geography just because someone personally believes some people out there don't have maps?

And lastly, in addition to WP:MEDRS, the oft-quoted WP:RS is WP:NEWSORG, which explain quite clearly how the argument that New York Times is just as reliable as say The Auk is complete nonsense. I quote:

"For information about academic topics, scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than news reports. News reports may be acceptable depending on the context. Articles which deal in depth with specific studies, as a specialized article on science, are apt to be of more value than general articles which only tangentially deal with a topic. Frequently, although not always, such articles are written by specialist writers who may be cited by name."

-- Obsidi♠n Soul 05:48, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

The more I read the discussion the more it seems to be that this is some sort of vendetta to "rein in" the belligerent know-it-alls who dare to go against the all-powerful MOS.

Meanwhile, others feel as though certain WikiProjects wish to "rein in" the ignorant peons who dare to defy the all-knowledgeable specialists' sacrosanct proclamations.

Personally, I think that it would be very helpful if editors on both sides were to set aside such attitudes and assume that all of us sincerely seek Wikipedia's betterment (and merely disagree on how to achieve it).

As already pointed out repeatedly, the conventions exist outside of Wikipedia. The members of the affected WikiProjects are following the respective conventions of their respective fields.

Agreed. There should be no doubt that the capitalization convention is real and legitimate. The question is whether it belongs in Wikipedia.

Many specialist publications employ specialist style conventions. These reflect the needs and expectations of their specialist readerships, which aren't necessarily the same as those of a general audience.

Editors of entertainment-related articles might feel comfortable adopting the style conventions of Variety, a highly reputable authority (and likely source of factual information) widely imitated by industry writers. I suspect that the results would horrify you.

None of them are doing it just to thumb their noses at the more "mainstream" Wikipedia editors and continually implying it is so is extremely insulting.

You began your "rant" with the statement that "the more [you] read the discussion the more it seems to be that this is some sort of vendetta to 'rein in' the belligerent know-it-alls who dare to go against the all-powerful MOS." I realize that you're frustrated and genuinely perceive such an attack, but this is exactly the same attitude that you (rightly) condemn.

As noted above, such comments (from both sides) are unhelpful. I see no evidence that anyone is acting out of malice or spite. This is an honest disagreement among editors seeking to improve Wikipedia.

In particular the accusations of entire WikiProjects exhibiting WP:OWN is ridiculous. That's like saying the ornithologists or botanists or lepidopterists who are painstakingly standardizing common names are doing it for shits and giggles.

On the contrary, most WP:OWN violations occur among passionate editors/editor groups who take their efforts to improve Wikipedia very seriously. It has nothing to do with frivolity.

This isn't a "me layman, you specialist" type of argument, so drop the indignated act at how dare these WikiProjects subordinate already. We are all Wikipedians, none of us are acting as specialists here.

Certainly, it would be incorrect to claim that every member of the WikiProjects in question has attempted to exercise special editorial authority. Some have straightforwardly acknowledged that they advocate exceptions and appealed to the Wikipedia community for support.

Others have conveyed (both here and at the WikiProjects themselves) a belief that WikiProjects are entitled to create special guidelines for "their" articles, overruling those of the wider community.

Again, however, this doesn't stem from sinister motives. It merely reflects the editors' sincere desire to ensure that articles about which they're passionate are written in what they believe to be the optimal manner.

Likewise, other editors are passionate about Wikipedia as a whole and merely want to ensure that it's written in what we believe to be the optimal manner. (And to be clear, I don't mean to imply that WikiProject members don't also care about Wikipedia as a whole.)

And a very prevalent false assumption here is that various specialist fields are somehow answerable to a higher power of generalists who dictate what should be.

I don't think that anyone is suggesting that. Specialists clearly are entitled to set standards for their own writing, including conventions deviating from general usage.

Our point is that on matters of grammatical style, general writers aren't somehow answerable to a higher power of non-grammarian specialists who dictate what should be (i.e. they aren't wrong to refer to a species as "common blackbird" instead of "Common Blackbird").

Both styles are valid in their respective contexts. Specialists are correct to write specialist literature in their styles, while non-specialists are correct to write non-specialist literature in theirs.

A consensus within a specialist field is far more binding than a consensus within the general scientific community.

Agreed. But these specialists aren't experts in the field of English grammar.

Again, the default in biological sciences is not to legislate any conventions whatsoever when it comes to common names. In short, there is no rule that says common names should be in sentence case, as far as I know.

They probably also lack rules against writing in ALL-UPPERCASE or uʍop-ǝpısdn. As you note, it isn't a biologist's place to legislate English conventions.

Furthermore, yes this is a general encyclopedia. Does that make it okay to sacrifice scientific accuracy simply so the pages look prettier?

You're begging the question. There is no consensus — here or among reliable sources in general — that failure to adhere to the convention in question "sacrifices scientific accuracy".

And I've seen no one cite "so the pages look prettier" as an argument against the convention's use at Wikipedia.

Think of it like Fox News, putting Egypt in the middle of Iran and Syria. Those who don't know their geography (which will be the majority) will just continue nodding their heads as the newscaster increasingly makes an idiot of him/herself.

Non-adherence to a style convention ≠ factual incorrectness.

"Articles which deal in depth with specific studies, as a specialized article on science, are apt to be of more value than general articles which only tangentially deal with a topic."

No one disputes that. Ornithological publications typically are the most valuable sources of ornithological facts. Likewise, botanical publications typically are the most valuable sources of botanical facts. Neither ornithological publications nor botanical publications are the most valuable sources in the area of English grammar, a topic topic with which they deal only tangentially. —David Levy 09:14, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

"Others have conveyed (both here and at the WikiProjects themselves) a belief that WikiProjects are entitled to create special guidelines for "their" articles, overruling those of the wider community."

^That is exactly what I meant. The motives for superseding scientific convention is grounded within Wikipedia alone, including the accusation that it's the fault of the WikiProjects themselves. Since when did Wikipedia have the authority to supersede scientific convention? Forgive me but that smacks of arrogance.

Comparing scientific conventions to editorial conventions and relegating it to mere English grammar is horrific to me. Did you know that plants and animals have two very different styles of indicating authorship? Consider Nauclea orientalis (L.) L. and Hylarana aurantiaca (Boulenger, 1904).

N. orientalis indicates that it was first described by Linnaeus under a different genus and then transferred to another genus, again by Linnaeus. H. aurantiaca indicates that it was first described by George Albert Boulenger under a different genus in 1904 and has since been transferred. It's not necessary in the plant author citation to indicate when, conversely, the animal author citation does not indicate who transferred what.

These are not mere editorial differences. Neither can you force botanists to adopt the zoological convention and vice versa. In the same vein, you can not force common practice on a specialist convention unless they themselves accept it. Avoiding confusion when it comes to names may seem trivial to you but it's not. Taxonomy itself deals mostly with clarifying synonymies, and that's the same reason why some fields have adopted common name conventions. -- Obsidi♠n Soul 02:00, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

P.S. as for all-caps and upside down. WP:COMMONSENSE please. There is no rule in English grammar saying we're forbidden to do both either.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 02:38, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Translation:

But we're right!

—David Levy 11:55, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

This is a fair translation for most of the messages in this page, including your own comments above. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:40, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

No, I don't cite my belief that I'm right as justification for dismissing fellow editors' arguments as arrogant, bad-faith attempts to exert control over others (while simultaneously condemning this attitude on their part). —David Levy 15:15, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh lordy. Is that really all you can say? In case you didn't notice, dear sir, I work mostly on plants and animals which do not impose the title case convention, and since I myself prefer the sentence case, I use the sentence case. But by all means, if you don't have any rebuttals other than "it's English grammar!" and "Wikipedia makes its own rules, it should be so because Wikipedia says so!"¹ feel free to continue asserting them until you've driven these upstart WikiProjects back down on their knees and stay there, aye? You've already driven one editor to retirement.

¹And no, no one needs to say those explicitly either, learn to read between the lines before making the tired accusation of "you're making a straw man argument!" as if that invalidates anything anyway.

Meanwhile I leave you all to this glorious tribunal of the almighty Wikipedian manual-of-stylists for great justice, while I go back to more productive work. You know... writing articles. Good day.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 14:37, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Whoa... Bit of a misconception there. No one here has said that Wikipedia should make up its own rules. People on both sides of this debate have only talked about following rules from the outside. It is only that the general and specialist style guides have different rules on this point. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:52, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Really doesn't seem that way to me. At least for the early parts of the er.. "discussion".-- Obsidi♠n Soul 10:20, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

You seem to have missed my point, which is that regarding oneself as right — including when one is right — isn't a license to dismiss fellow editors' arguments as arrogant, bad-faith attempts to exert control (while simultaneously condemning this attitude on their part).

We all need to work together, even when we feel that we're right and others are wrong (not that either necessarily is the case). Believe it or not, those "wrong" people are trying to write an encyclopedia too. —David Levy 15:15, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Funny, because it wasn't I who just dismissed an argument. Anyway enough drama, I've far better things to do.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 10:20, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not dismissing your argument. I'm criticising it (while assuming that it reflects the honest views of someone who sincerely wishes to improve Wikipedia).

You wrote this:

The members of the affected WikiProjects are following the respective conventions of their respective fields. None of them are doing it just to thumb their noses at the more "mainstream" Wikipedia editors and continually implying it is so is extremely insulting.

I've expressed agreement that such comments are unhelpful (which is hardly dismissive on my part). However, you also wrote this:

The more I read the discussion the more it seems to be that this is some sort of vendetta to "rein in" the belligerent know-it-alls who dare to go against the all-powerful MOS.

The above, of course, is the exact attitude that you condemned in the very same paragraph (a belief that those on the other side of the debate are acting out of spite). When I noted this, your response was nothing more than an explanation of why you believe that you're right (which apparently transforms such remarks from "extremely insulting" to perfectly fine.)

We don't have a page titled "Wikipedia:Assume good faith unless you believe that you're right and they're wrong". —David Levy 11:56, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Isn't it though? Even a very quick scan of the "discussion" reveals that the pro-legislate-the-common-names side's arguments basically amounted to accusations ad nauseam of WP:OWN, WP:FILIBUSTER, WP:TE, WP:Gaming the system, "straw man", "begging the question", "ignoring consensus", [insert name of logical fallacy here] etc. Including your own comments. I mean, jeez this isn't a philosophical debate! What's more, all of it undeniably indicates that you somehow view the failure of some WikiProjects to conform to the majority of related (but not necessarily overarching) articles a deliberate act of bad faith. It's the most classic case of WP:Wikilawyering and WP:Policy shopping that I've ever seen, and sharply contrasts with the arguments of the "specialist" editors. With that disparity, how exactly can this "discussion" be AGFed? -- Obsidi♠n Soul 10:42, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

While criticising some of the arguments made on this page, I've continually stressed that I don't question the birders' motives. Example:

I want to be clear in expressing my certainty that the WikiProject's members sincerely seek the betterment of Wikipedia. I disagree with this particular decision, but it unquestionably was made in good faith.

Indeed, I've cited WP:OWN. As that policy reminds us, most violations occur among users acting in good faith.

You've deemed it "extremely insulting" when editors accuse the birders of exerting editorial control out of spite (and I agree), but you find it reasonable to lodge exactly the same accusation against those with whom you disagree (in the same paragraph!). This is unhelpful. —David Levy 22:33, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Let's also not forget that there's more than just "good faith" and "bad faith". That's a childish, "I really believe in Star Wars" approach. No one has to be Emperor Palpatine to exercise poor judgment with regard to what is best for a general purpose, general audience encyclopedia because they are so steeped to their insider, specialist conventions from ornithology journals and bird field guides that they come across as unable to even contemplate writing for a different audience with different standards. This kind of crap happens all the time. I cannot tell you how many pool players I know who insist on capitalizing "9-Ball" (even though every single grammar book in the known universe says you never capitalize the part after the hyphen unless it's independently a proper name, and we don't capitalize non-trademarked game names at all anyway), or how many chess player cannot stand to write "pawn" or "king" because they feel they "must" be capitalized, to the expectant nods of all chess players and the outrage of everyone else who gives a damn about grammar and not looking like a moron who can't spell. Every other specialist on the planet wants to capitalize stuff from their field that they feel is important and special. They're welcome to do that in chess magazines and pool books and whatever. In an encyclopedia is just the worst idea ever, because pretty soon every damned noun is going to end up capitalized like we're speaking German. Enough, enough, enough. T H I S   I S   N O T   B I R D I P E D I A. Learn this. Know it. Feel it. And it's not some kind of incivil attack behavior to question the motives of certain birders who reappear in these perennial debates regurgitating the same arguments, when the suspicion is one of misprioritization not of malice. Science geeks rarely make good novelists or journalists. They often don't make good encyclopedists, either, missing the forest for the trees. (I say that as a science geek, who has done a whole lot of other kinds of writing; learning to separate them and use the right style for the right audience is a skill that has to be learned). I don't think a single person in this debate is acting in bad faith. But some have their faces press up against trees they think are more important than the larger environment they're operating in. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 06:24, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

TLDR break (for people summoned here by outreach)

Sorry, have not read all the above, but impression I got is that we will just formalize what exists already. Looks like all are pretty calm. I personally prefer the usage in newspapers and Britannica of old school lowercasing. (Do you say "Chef's Knife" or "chef's knife" when indicating the compound noun versus the possessed item?) That said, I know the birders have been going a different direction for 50 years. And will point to field guide usage and the tendancies of their journals. And it would never do to try to reign them in. I think some common sense trench is what makes sense.

Only thing is that what makes sense is ALL the species in a birder article should be handled the way they want. And the converse. So "Painted Turtle" in their article. But in the Painted turtle article itself, normal capitalization "painted turtle" is used...and similarly it is "bald eagle" within that article.TCO (Reviews needed) 05:59, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think anyone's disagreed with that point. Consistency within the article is one of MOS's key functions. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 08:18, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

TLDR indeed. I intend to follow usage in reliable sources. When it comes to Australian plants, reliable sources overwhelmingly favour capitalisation of common names. Is there a single argument in this wall of text that trumps my desire to follow the nomenclature and orthography of my field by doing what my colleagues do in real publications in real reliable sources in the real world? No, I didn't think so. Hesperian 06:04, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia always works best with a single rule to refer to, and I would support the orginal points. I personally don't agree with capitalising bird names, it seems like an affectation, but we wither need to agree to enforce lower case on birds, or include the point in the MOS that all animals are lower case except birds. OwainDavies ^(about)_(talk) edited at 07:43, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

A crucial point lost in the mess here is that the birds exception is, and for over seven years has been, highly controversial. How to express that in a non-inflammatory way is where we're at. There's no resolution to the birds debate in sight, so MOS simply needs to observe that the controversy exists and that the WP:BIRDS hold-out position should not (per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy) be emulated in any sort of "If WP:BIRDS gets one, our project now demands an exception for [insert random style issue here], too!" free-for-all. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 08:37, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

As before, you choose to ignore the fact (and it is a fact) that it is not only in bird articles that capitalization is used (and will continue to be used whatever the MOS says). I can only repeat what Hesperian says above for Austrialian sources, "When it comes to [British] plants, reliable sources overwhelmingly favour capitalisation of common names. Is there a single argument in this wall of text that trumps my desire to follow the nomenclature and orthography of my field by doing what my colleagues do in real publications in real reliable sources in the real world? No, I didn't think so." Peter coxhead (talk) 12:44, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

The flaw in that argument is that "reliable sources" ≠ "specialist sources". Wikipedia is a non-specialist publication, so it usually reflects the style conventions of reliable non-specialist sources. —David Levy 12:54, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

That is not a flaw in my argument. Reliable sources in my field capitalise common names. This statement holds across the board, from wildflower books pitched at the average Joe, through to taxonomic treatises written for working botanists. Hesperian 17:01, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

...both of which are specialist publications. Again, those aren't the only "reliable sources". What do non-specialist publications (i.e. those not dedicated to coverage of plants/nature, such as general-audience books, newspapers, magazines and websites) do? —David Levy 19:10, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

WTF? Publications not dedicated to coverage of plants don't bother to talk about plant species. They aren't exactly pop culture you know. Hesperian 01:05, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

You assert, if I understand correctly, that common names of plant species don't appear (or rarely appear) outside botanical publications. Is that what you mean? —David Levy 02:08, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Tomorrow I might be in the mood to expand our article on Banksia pulchella, the Teasel Banksia. I assert that I won't find any information on that plant worth including in the article, other than in reliable sources that you would deem "specialist". I furthermore assert that the vast majority of reliable sources on that plant will give the common name in title case. Hesperian 03:54, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

And the vast majority of reliable sources on capitalization will tell you not to. Darkfrog24 (talk) 04:31, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

...which reduces this discussion to the pointless bickering of ideologues. I have to make a choice between being consistent with my sources, and being consistent across Wikipedia. Some of us value consistency with sources. Others value consistency across Wikipedia. These are ideological positions. There is no rational basis for arguing for one over the other... except for the ad hominem observation that the people who value consistency with sources are generally the people who come to Wikipedia to edit articles, whereas the people who value consistency across Wikipedia are generally the people who come to Wikipedia to impose rules on other editors. Hesperian 04:41, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Actually, guides and sources are better than guesses. Check out the lowercase 5 of first 9 (skipping the wp copy) Teasel Banksia book hits. This indicates that capitalization is not necessarily; there's no need to override the MOS style to be consistent with good sources. Same way with birds, dog breeds, comets, etc. Dicklyon (talk) 06:03, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

A highly illustrative example. Note that the ones that use lower case are precisely those that have zero value as reliable sources when it comes to writing the article: a book on ecofriendly design that makes a passing reference to the species; a book on growing Australian plants from seed that doesn't treat this species at all other than to include it in a table of names; a travelog; a coffee table book about Australian landscapes. Now look at the ones that do: Sweedman (2006), an excellent source which our stub already cites; several solid taxonomic monographs on the genus, the renowned Banksia Atlas. Of course you would also want to cite solid online sources like this and this and this and this. Hesperian 11:47, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is intended to serve readers first and foremost. Most of Wikipedia's readers are unacquainted with botanical literature and the specialist conventions thereof.

Editors of entertainment-related articles might feel comfortable adopting the style conventions of Variety, a highly reputable authority (and likely source of factual information) widely imitated by industry writers. I suspect that the outcome would horrify you.

Consistency across Wikipedia isn't the primary goal; consistency with reliable sources is. And while specialist publications are reliable sources on matters of fact, they don't trump general publications on matters of style.

I agree that assertions of inherent "rightness" and "wrongness" (from both sides) are ideological and unhelpful. Clearly, each of the two styles is appropriate within its respective context (specialist and non-specialist literature). But it's perfectly reasonable to point out that Wikipedia is a non-specialist publication and argue that it should be written accordingly (which it is in almost every subject area). —David Levy 05:34, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

You stated that "publications not dedicated to coverage of plants don't bother to talk about plant species." This is patently false. I don't expect editors of Wikipedia's plant articles to derive factual information (e.g. ecology and life cycle) from many non-specialist sources, but that doesn't negate their relevance on matters of style. —David Levy 05:34, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes it does. I have no interest whatsoever in what a crappy coffee table travelog calls a plant. I care what people who know and write about the plant call it. Hesperian 11:52, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

If we were to apply that principle to my industry, our film/television articles would contain such terms as "aud", "ayem", "boff", "chopsocky", "competish", "crix", "distribbery", "floppola", "hotsy", "kudocast", "laffer", "meller", "mitting", "nabe", "nitery", "oater", "ozoner", "percentery", "perf", "praisery", "preem", "prexy", "sked", "spesh", "sudser" and "terper".

How would you feel about that? —David Levy 12:53, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

If these are the preferred terminology of the reliable sources that you use to write your articles, then you have my full support. But I expect they are just slang terms, never used in reliable sources, and therefore not relevant to this discussion. Hesperian 13:17, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

As he stated, these are the terms used in the reliable sources of his industry, terms spearheaded by Variety, and just as relevant as B&O source usage. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:30, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

If they are the preferred terminology, as in reliable sources generally use these terms in preference to others when they need to express a concept, then, as I stated, their use on Wikipedia has my full support. But I don't believe this is the case; I've plugged several of these into Google Scholar and Google Books, and I see no evidence that these are in common use in reliable sources on filmmaking. Hesperian 13:49, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

As JHunterJ noted, these terms were coined by Variety (arguably the industry's most respected and influential print publication). They appear (in preference to other terms with the same meaning) in Variety and other reliable sources of television/film industry news (notably the Chicago Tribune).

And no, I won't be using them in our articles (apart from direct quotations and explanations of the terminology itself). Wikipedia is written for a general audience, not for specialists in the individual subject areas covered. —David Levy 14:03, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. Reliable sources do not favor capitalisation of common names. Reliable sources overwhelmingly favor not capitalising common names, except for the first word of a sentence. Specialist sources represent a small subset of reliable sources, and within that subset the favor shifts, but Wikipedia does not restrict RS to that subset. If this were "Wikibotanypedia", we might so restrict RS, but this is a general encyclopedia. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:51, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Hesperian, there is. The argument is that because Wikipedia is not limited to your field but rather an encyclopedia (meaning that it covers as many fields as possible), it must not limit itself to one field when seeking reliable sources. For the question of "should X or Y be capitalized," it can and should consult general style guides as well as specialist style guides. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:05, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

The real world also "is not limited to your field", yet somehow, miraculously, it continues to turn, even while mammalologists and ornithologists dare to use different capitalisation conventions. Hesperian 16:54, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

No, there is a policy that states that an article should be based on the available WP:reliable sources, and that includes both general and specialist sources. And if that happens to be a bird article, that include capitalization. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 16:11, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

You lead with "No" there, but you're agreeing with Darkfrog24 -- reliable sources include both specialist and general sources. And looking at both specialist and general sources for birds, the majority of them use sentence casing. It's only when you exclude general sources that you can find a case for using Title Casing, but as we've just agreed, we don't exclude general sources, we include both. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:58, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

You are mistaken. How many reliable sources have discussed that the common practice of bird editors to Capitalize Bird Names is incorrect? ZERO. What I have seen is claims of "This is how it is done, see all these generic style manuals" But neither actually says anything specific about birds. If I use that same methods, I could force creationism oin each and every biology article under the argument that "This is what people belief, see all these generic creationist books". Just using power of the numbers is not a valid way to determine what is correct, and definably not a reliable source. So, show me the reliable sources that discuss why the common practise of capitalizing bird names is incorrect and should not be done. We have shown the sources that argue it should be done. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 21:12, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Here's what I have at my fingertips: Bedford Handbook, fifth edition, page 240, refers to "toucans" and "macaws," both lowercase, as part of an example of good writing. On page 242, it's "chickens" and "peacocks." I doubt it specifically addresses bird names specifically, but it does address the difference between common and proper nouns and, as we can see, it does use lowercase for bird names. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:42, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that's an example of what the birders are talking about. As I understand it, they write robin, but American Robin. This has the function of avoiding the confusion that an American robin might be any robin that's American, rather than the particular species called American Robin. --Trovatore (talk) 23:49, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, Darkfrog none of those are species. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 23:53, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Why would any of them talk about something so specific as bird names? I don't see how your request is reasonable or anyone's failure to answer it is a problem. Look—I don't think anyone is saying it is flat out wrong to capitalize them. Maybe a bit odd, but not totally wrong. The main point is that it is suboptimal to mix styles for different groups of species. Someone wants to capitalize plants names from Australia. Before it was African carnivorans. How many ways can we slice it? Since it seems pretty clear that in scholarly writing species names are capitalized a solid majority of the time, and this is supported by various style guides, it is reasonable for Wikipedia as a whole to capitalize species names. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 22:00, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

How many reliable sources have discussed that the common practice of bird editors to Capitalize Bird Names is incorrect? ZERO.

No one asserts that it's incorrect for specialist editors to adopt specialist style conventions for specialist publications.

Wikipedia isn't a specialist publication, nor does it usually emulate specialist publications' style conventions inconsistent with those in general usage.

What I have seen is claims of "This is how it is done, see all these generic style manuals" But neither actually says anything specific about birds. If I use that same methods, I could force creationism oin each and every biology article under the argument that "This is what people belief, see all these generic creationist books".

Yet again, you're conflating the concepts of "fact" and "style".

No one disputes that ornithological publications typically are the most reliable sources of factual information about birds (e.g. their biology and breeding behavior). This doesn't make them authorities on English grammar (whose conventions negate the legitimacy of those in general usage). —David Levy 22:07, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

And to really establish capitalization, you'd probably need to exclude even journal articles about birds that are not in ornithology journals. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:36, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia should be based in the best sources. Generalist sources don't know the field in depth and can make all sort of mistakes and misinterpretations. Scholar books and articles in specialized journals are preferred to newspaper articles. WP:MEDRS makes this distinction very clear. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:10, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Specialist sources such as academic jounrals are the best at relaying facts and general-English style guides are the best at advising writers how to present thier information intelligibly. We should give each type of source precedence depending on what we're trying to do. Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:50, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Generalist sources can spell the names incorrectly or misuse them because they are not written by experts in the field that are familiar with the topic. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:53, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but they usually don't. Conversely, I'm a proofreader of scientific journal articles, and "the experts" misspell things all the time. This isn't a case of generalist sources getting it wrong; this is a case of a split between generalist and specialist guidance.

Let's look at your example, WP:MEDRS. It actually supports the idea that sources should be considered reliable or not depending on how they're to be used. Here's it's take on general news articles (contrasted with academic journal articles, bold and italics mine):

The popular press is generally not a reliable source for scientific and medical information in articles.

A news article should therefore not be used as a sole source for a medical fact or figure.

Conversely, the high-quality popular press can be a good source for social, biographical, current-affairs, and historical information in a medical article.

In other words, WP:MEDRS says to prefer academic journals over newspaper articles et al. for scientific facts while maintaining that news articles are indeed reliable for other types of information. WP:MEDRS supports the ideas of combining academic sources with other sources on Wikipedia and of using sources based on the source's subject matter, audience and area of expertise. Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:58, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Options for making the point that it's controversial

Here's a bullet-point analysis of the phrases offered as alternatives to choose from so far, to describe the MOS stance on the controversial exception that WP:BIRDS has been operating under, to always capitalize common names of birds. Three seem viable and interchangeable, and two more could be useful add-ons in wordier guidelines. The rest are problematic.

These three seem equivalent to me, more or less:

• "is controversial"
• "is perennially disputed",
• "does not have Wikipedia-wide consensus".

Just so the five guidelines don't all simply have the same text copy-pasted between them, I'd suggest they all be used on different pages. But someone may feel that one or another of them is inflammatory or something. All three of these variants are provably true, but the intent is to simply be factual, neither appeasing nor antagonizing, and it is difficult to predict who'll react how to what. I was very surprised, example, that someone found "controversial" to be more troublesome than "doesn't have consensus".

This pair are both true, but hinge the issue on externally-derived prescriptive grammar:

• "is not consistently regarded as correct"
• "contradicts the advice of general-English style guides"

There are actually multiple more important objections to upper-casing animal names. The two biggest are public perception of WP as low-credibility and incompetently edited, and lack of consistency leading to editorial confusion and chaos, both very real, interrelated and definitely tied to this issue. (The credibility one, i.e. "it makes us look like illiterates", is also incidentally the one most often raised in journals and sother cientific fora by capitalization-opposing specialists in fields where capitalization is being pushed; it is far from a trivial or idle concern someone just made up on a wikiproject talk page.) I do like both of those bulleted phrases, and they are good as additional reasons in the more detailed sub-guidelines, but I think MOS mainpage should stick to the "controversial"/"disputed"/"no consensus" point up top. As someone else suggested, detailing the exact nature of the dispute isn't germane to MOS's scope, and could be controversial itself.

This next one is too loaded, as "propriety" implies a moral/ethical issue to many people:

• "the propriety of this practice on Wikipedia is questioned".

The next two lend the MOS consensus imprimatur to something that is very, very contentious:

• "is not fully endorsed by MOS"
• "is not recommended for WikiProjects for which it is not already the status quo"

They imply that the WP:BIRDS practice does have partial endorsement from MOS or is recommended by MOS for birds and is a status quo acceptable to community at large, none of which is true (common names of animals are not capitalized, est. ca. 2008).

This one implies MOS is a policy that can demand, tolerate, or ban something:

• The use of capital letters for the common names of bird species is tolerated in WP:BIRDS but not recommended"

It also again lends an imprimatur of acceptance that isn't real.

This one misstates the facts:

• "WP:BIRDS follows the consensus in the ornithology literature to capitalize common names of birds"

As noted elsewhere in the longer debate, there is no such consensus, just what WP:BIRDS has twice called called "an increasingly common" or "growing ornithological convention", "by no means universal" "amongst bird authorities, but widespread", to synthesize the two,^{[1] [2]} and it is based on a list provided by the IOC who are not even considered authoritative on taxonomy;^[3] meanwhile, someone even observed decreasing use of title case in U.S.-based bird publications.^{(forgot where, but ran across it 3x earlier; it'll turn up again.)} More importantly, it wrongly implies that MOS actually defers to project "guidelines" when they conflict with MOS, and implies that any project is free to use any convention it can find somewhere in specialist literature for anything, against whatever the real guidelines say. That would be a Pandora's box clearly forbidden by WP:LOCALCONSENSUS in 2012's Wikipedia.

The core message is: "MOS has a lower-case standard for this, like the rest of the writing, editing and publishing world for general-audiences and very nearly all specialist audiences. One group of editors controversially does the opposite of what the MOS recommends. MOS isn't going to fight with them about it, since that's not is job, just acknowledge that the dispute exists and call for consistency everywhere else."

[Note: Yes, some editors of certain kinds of plants and insects and whales and whatever articles prefer the WP:PLANTS style, but did not collectively at other projects arrive at any project-level consensuses to go there, or, like WP:CETACEANS, did for a while, but abandoned it in the face of the same criticism that made WP:PLANTS become entrenched instead. WP:LOCALCONSENSUS would not permit other projects to do so today anyway, making the matter moot. We don't need to account for outliers. Plenty of editors think that Capital Letters Can Be Used for Emphasis, that quotations like to be or not to be should be italicized instead of quoted (or worse "both"), or that it's fine, ain't it, to use contractions, and gobsmacking, ornery colloquialisms, and a bunch of FUBAR jargon, and their' own quirky misuse's of apostrophes. We do not make exceptions for them, and there's no need to make exceptions for those who would prefer to write "Blue Whale" or "Death-Cap Mushroom". To then extent it is deemed important at an article to note an "authoritative" names being given in upper case, there's a simple solution that has nothing to do with MOS. The purpose of mentioning WP:BIRDS here, by name or otherwise, is only to note the dispute, both to prevent spread of the style beyond birds and to prevent "overzealous editors" from going on a fight-starting decapitalizing spree in bird articles while there is still active debate about bird name style. It's not to lend imprimatur to the project's preferences or advertise that other projects should line up to get their own custom MOS exemptions while they're hot.]

— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 08:37, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Even the section post-TLDR is now TLDR. If there is an answer to my query (my last post above), could you direct me to it please? Thanks. Ben MacDui 09:07, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

The variant "does not have Wikipedia-wide consensus" seems to me by far the best: it's factually true and avoids judging whether consensus exists in sub-communities or whether the controversy will continue (it may not!) Peter coxhead (talk) 10:45, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Many things don't have demonstrable Wikipedia-wide consensus, but they are still the established practice in their areas, and we should be telling people about them without fuss. Instead of trying to force badges of shame into what is already a long page of complex guidance, I suggest (again) that those who want to change the practice should make a clear proposal for doing so, and await consensus.--Kotniski (talk) 13:51, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

How about "Wikipedia-level consensus" or "MoS-level consensus"? We need to establish that it does have Wikiproject-level consensus while acknowledging that this is technically not enough.Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:39, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm okay with "does not have Wikipedia-wide consensus" if that is seen as sufficient. I don't know why anyone would object to "controversial" (which just means "people argue about it"). But whatever. This has nothing to do with making WP:BIRDS look bad; the louder members of that project, probably to the quiet embarrassment of the majority, do that just fine all by themselves with their hostility, tendentiousness and "everyone who disagrees with us is just ignorant" arrogance. All this is really about is stopping random pockets of editors from making up their own "rules" to capitalize everything under the sun, or seek other special exemptions from encyclopedic style to suit their whims. We don't need to go into any explicit detail about whether WP:BIRDS internally has consensus or not. WP:LOCALCONSENSUS obviates any need to do that, because it's moot. Established practices in narrow topic areas are trumped by site-wide guidelines when the two conflict, period. There simply is no debate about that any longer. ArbCom has repeatedly said the same thing. Pockets of editors do not get to make up their own rules against wider-spread consensus. WP:BIRDS should count its blessings that their doing so has largely been tolerated, and look for ways to make people happier with what they are doing, instead of treating it like a religious crusade to convert the unbirdly heathens every the issue comes up. I think they collectively really have no idea how much the project looks like a farm for zealotry with no concern for anything but their own constituency, instead of for encyclopedia readers. But science types are rarely any good at PR. Anyway, just by virtue of the fact that MOS mentions it all as a controversial exception (of sorts), it's clear that the practice is at least said to have consensus inside the project. (I've actually seen bird editors disagree with it, but they do not appear to be numerous). 08:04, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose The MOS is for style, not a place to kick a bunch of editors for being consistent with WP:COMMONNAME based on reliable sources. Until now, I have seen the generic claim that Style manuals say that bird names are not capitalized, although none of them actually discusses the common practice in the field to capitalize them. The sole exception is the CMoS that refers to authoritative guides. Maybe the lowercap proponents can find a reliable source stating that the common practice to capitalize within birds is incorrect for birds beyond sources that actually do not discuss it. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 21:04, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

  1. Your continued insistence that "reliable source" = "specialist source" is inexplicable.
  2. You've misconstrued others' claims about style guides, thereby setting up a straw man that you've continued attacking even after our positions were clarified.
  3. Other members of WikiProject Birds have acknowledged that they advocate an exception to Wikipedia's usual style conventions. You're the only one arguing not only that it isn't an exception, but that those who disagree are blatantly and outrageously disregarding policy. —David Levy 21:44, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose As a non-birder, I don't think WP:BIRDS usage can reasonably be described as 'controversial'. A special case perhaps, but unless the project (and the bird world itself) is divided on the issue then we shouldn't use this word. It is not for WP to tell the scientific/academic community how to copyedit their books. --Kleinzach 01:10, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

How would you feel about the expression "controversial on Wikipedia"? That is provably the case. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:54, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose singling out birds is not needed - numerous areas of difference of opinion. Birds have official names like planets, countries, languages, continents etc. I don't see folks jumping up and down for europe, saturn etc. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:23, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose As per Cas. We've created thousands of articles, including more than a hundred FAs and GAs, while some people sit around, sniping, wikilawyering, and getting upset over hyphens (or should that be endashes?). Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:03, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose This is becoming a personal vendetta for the proposers. Unconstructive and disruptive when you consider the simple fact that the laymen readers these are supposed to serve do not care whichever is the case anyway; in contrast, the capitalization of bird names is very important among specialist readers and sources themselves. The "benefit" at this point seems to be simply the peace of mind of the grammar nazis at the expense of scientific accuracy. Pointless.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 03:42, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Credibility

I found the comment that capitalized English-language bird names contribute to "public perception of WP as low-credibility" as (I'm sure unintentionally) quite funny, as the opposite is true for most birdwatchers, birders, and ornithologists. And those are the people who most access those articles! I agree that "does not have Wikipedia-wide consensus" is not inflammatory. Natureguy1980 (talk)

I would not understand why the opposite should be true for B&Os, unless B&Os also view the New York Times and other general publication as having low credibility. It seems like B&Os would also expect a general online encyclopedia to follow general style guidelines as a matter of course. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:39, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

When they don't capitalize bird names, yes, it does lower their credibility in the eyes of many B&Os; it doesn't help that these instances of lowercase bird names are usually accompanied by blatant factual inaccuracies. I've twice been quoted in the NYT, and both times in pieces that were not properly researched. The lack of capitalization only makes it look more amateurish to those familiar with the typographic customs of the discipline. In other words, using capitalized bird names lends immediate credibility in the eyes on B&Os. And I think that is why there is so much resistance to eliminating them. Personally speaking, I can't think of any authoritative/respected source in the United States, lay or professional, which does not capitalize. Natureguy1980 (talk) 00:42, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

This is where "write for your audience" comes in. We're not writing only for ornithologists and non-professional bird enthusiasts. We're writing for those people and the biologists who needs background and the fourth grader doing a report and the Colombian who's reading Wikipedia to learn English and the schoolteacher doublechecking facts; we're writing for anyone who can read in English. Working with most of the people most of the time, in this case, means using lowercase. Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:51, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Again, because I'm incredulous: You are claiming that B&Os have a low view of the credibility of every source outside B&O journals. The New York Times coverage of the stock market or obituaries or diplomatic events is in question because the NYT doesn't follow a particular group's branch from usual English style? In any event, I'd rather have credibility with everyone except B&Os over B&Os, if they are directly at odds. The greater good and all. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:44, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm saying that B&Os have have a low view of the credibility of any article that writes about birds without capitalizing the English-language names. You needn't look into it any further than that. We simply disagree on a fundamental level, Darkfrog. I firmly believe that the vast majority of people accessing the bird-related pages are, believe it or not, people who are interested in birds, and who are familiar with the capitalization convention. I also happen to believe that the people who best know a subject should be listened to in matters such as this. If the convention in physics were to never use capital letters, then I'd have no problem with the physics pages doing so. It would look very odd to me, but I'm not a physicist. Natureguy1980 (talk) 04:49, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

The people who know best about the subject, the capitalization of nouns, are the composers of style guides, not the composers of ornithology articles.

The fact that this disagreement between WP:Birds and WP:MoS exists is what this whole mess is about. If you look at SmC's original points, you'll see that he's not trying to to rework all the WP:Birds articles so that they have to use lowercase. Those points acknowledge that you guys use capital letters and that this is contested. If that text went into the guideline, it would protect bird articles from overzealous decapitalization. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:56, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. And the section isn't something to "oppose" or "support" on (the fact that WP:BIRDS practice is controversial is proven, as is the fact that the MOS notes when there are controversies that get in the way of its consistent application). There simply isn't a debate on that. The issue is how it should be phrased, not whether it gets mentioned, which is a foregone conclusion. Well, actually the other option is to simply not mention birds at all, and simply state that we don't capitalize common names, period. Perfectl yfine by me. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 08:04, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Natureguy1980: This cannot possibly be true: "B&Os have a low view of the credibility of any article that writes about birds without capitalizing the English-language names." As far as I can determine (and I and plenty of others have looked extensively) very close to zero, possibly only one, non-ornithological, peer-reviewed general science journal that does publish ornithological articles, permits upper-casing of bird common names. Please show me one case, anywhere in the world, at any time, in any forum, of one or more ornithologists or even hobbyist birders disputing the credibility of any peer-reviewed ornithology article published in Nature, Science or any of the myriad other journals out there, on the basis of lack of capitalization. Take your time, look hard. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 08:04, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

• TLDR. Could someone summarise this enormous set of threads? My inclination is to downcase unless there's ambiguity. Please remember that some professionals and organisations love to upcase (dog breeders, give me a break) to bignote what they do. We should not necessarily go along with this. Tony (talk) 07:04, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

There's actually a different set of rationales offered for capitalizing breed/cultivar names, too. Completely different issue that we shouldn't mix in here. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 08:04, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

• Summary seems to be that the people who come to Wikipedia to write articles want to be free to capitalise or not according to what their sources do; whereas the people who come to Wikipedia to impose their views on others want to make an across-the-board capitalisation rule that makes Wikipedia nice and neat and consistent, and they don't much care that this would require editors to ignore the conventions of their field. It all comes down to what mode of consistency you value more: consistency with sources, or consistency within Wikipedia. Hesperian 12:05, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

  Please go re-read David Levy's excellent post above about assuming good faith.[2] Or you could just as easily write "Summary seems to be that the people who come to Wikipedia to write articles for a general encyclopedia for the general readers' benefit want to use accepted general style guidelines; whereas the people who come to Wikipedia to impose their views on others want to make unnecessary exceptions for the general capitalization rules and don't much care that this would require general readers to understand and appreciate the conventions of their field. It all comes down to what mode of consistency you value more: consistency with reliable sources in general, or consistency only with the specialist subset of reliable sources." -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:06, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

And it missed the point; we're trying to not force WP:BIRDS to use the general convention, because the debate about that is not settled. We are trying to stop the growing chaos that has spread from WP:BIRDS into all organism articles, with every other editor capitalizing or not capitalizing as they randomly see fit. This enormous mess, which is very notably worsened in the last two years or so, is due to inconsistent and wishy-washy guideline language and blatant ignoring of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy in some of these conflicting guidelines, all of which are actually subordinate to MOS on matters like this. A few WP:BIRDS editors think that any time animal capitalization comes up it is a direct personal attack against them and launch into defensive, repetitious, incivil tirades, but this is a red herring and cannot continue to distract us from dealing with the real issues. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 08:04, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Summary of the current WP:BIRDS capitalization discussion

BACKGROUND: For many years, there has been a split between WP:Birds (and a few other places) and WP:MoS. There is a long-standing consensus (WP:LOCALCONSENSUS) that Wikiprojects don't get to make up their own style rules. However, at WP:Birds, the prevailing style is to capitalize the common names of bird species (White-throated Sparrow, etc.) even though the MoS says not to. The main arguments in favor of capital letters is that almost all of the ornithology journals and bird books use capitals. The main arguments in favor of lowercase letters is that almost all of the rest of the English language, including almost all of the style guides, use lowercase. There is also a question of whether capital letters prevent people from confusing the specific species "white-throated sparrow" with any sparrow that has a white throat.

THIS PARTICULAR DISCUSSION: User SMcCandish noticed that not all of the guidelines (WP:MoS, WP:Naming Conventions, etc.), which are supposed to be identical, say the same thing, so SmC wrote up a list of points and suggested using them as a temporary template so that we could synch those guidelines. These points reflect the status quo: Capital letters on WP:BIRDS (and possibly a few other places) and lowercase letters everywhere else. These points are not about converting all of the WP:BIRDS articles to standard English. They are about getting all the guidelines to say the same thing. The attitude that most MoS regulars seem to have is, "The WP:BIRDS editors are doing it wrong, but we know we can't stop them, so let's acknowledge what they're doing while advising other editors not to do the same on other projects."

The main disputed point is "It is common practice on WP:BIRDS to use capital letters for common names, but this is controversial." Its purpose is to 1. prevent overzealous editors from changing capitals to lowercase on WP:BIRDS articles (This is desirable, even from a capitals-are-wrong perspective, because it would prevent edit wars.) and 2. advise editors not to use capitals outside WP:BIRDS. However, some WP:BIRDS editors seem to feel that the "this is controversial/disputed/questioned/etc." is insulting. The MoS regulars feel that the fact that capital letters do not have full consensus must be acknowledged in some way.

THIS PARTICULAR MESS: This led to a renewed debate about whether or not Wikipedia should use capital letters for the names of bird species: "But ornithology journals are more reliable than style guides! Shouldn't we use the best sources?" "Wikipedia is a general-audience publication, so we should use general-English rules!" Everyone seems to agree that ornithology journals are the best sources for facts about birds. This disagreement is whether or not this also makes them the best sources for style. We should follow the experts, but do the bird experts or the writing experts take precedence?

Please don't add any comments to this subthread that are not specifically about summarizing the situation for newcomers. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:56, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Great summary. The only point I would quibble with is that at the project level only WP:BIRDS has come to any controversial "alocal consensus" against lower case. A few projects on plants and insects and such have debated and dropped the issue from time to time. We shouldn't imply that multiple projects are against lower-casing. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 08:20, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Continuing the discussion

Okay, I'll start a new subthread. Personally, I have no objection to saying that the capitalization on bird articles is controversial at Wikipedia, or is often debated here, or doesn't have a consensus among Wikipedia editors, or things like that. Though a member of WP:BIRDS who has always capitalized names of bird species in bird articles, I don't feel insulted by such comments. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 16:48, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Hooray! I think the consensus is pretty clear, on the reality, and on the two sides of the argument, though I would throw in two points before I suggest a wording:

1. There are not unique common names for birds, as I found out recently, though there may be unique names approved by certain bodies.
2. We are not out to impress any group of people, either academia in general or ornithologists in particular. (And to think we will impress them by our citation style or capitalisation style shows that we hold them in low regard, for they will recognise that we are a an encyclopedia, and not, as some of our beloved contributors would like to believe, "scholarly" in that sense.)

Having said that, the proposed wording....

"... although official common bird names are de facto capitalised by members of WP:BIRDS."

This states the situation without implying consensus.

Rich Farmbrough, 00:09, 12 January 2012 (UTC).

1. A great many birds, but not all, have unique "official" English names. I wouldn't care to estimate the numbers. The trend has been toward standardization between lists (with some exceptions).
2. No one has said we're out to impress academics or ornithologists, though people on both sides of the argument are concerned with how we look to readers. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 03:52, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

1. Exactly.
2. Pretty much

You may not notice it if you misspelled a scientific name or failed to italicize it (both of which someone here was guilty of in this very discussion), but those that do notice it immediately know that this person should not be talking about anything related to biology.

I find this attitude to spelling and minutiae shallow and verging on detestable. Firstly it's outsidering. Secondly it's against the spirit of collaboration - if someone can write a good article with poor spelling, a good speller can fix it. I care about our readers and making the pages readable, having a good interface and putting the relevant information in the right place. I care about looking professional. But if someone stomps off in a huff because a proof doesn't end in a Halmos square, or we use the "other" sort of referencing, or spell "aluminium" the way they don't like, then at that point it becomes their problem, not ours. Rich Farmbrough, 08:33, 19 January 2012 (UTC).

Suggested text for the contested point five

Dicklyon, Natureguy and I got together and we came up with this:

"Although the de facto capitalization of the English-language names of bird species has local consensus at WP:BIRDS (following the practice of most academic and non-professional ornithology publications), this is controversial on Wikipedia."

It acknowledges current practice, acknowledges that the controversy occurs here and not in ornithology journals, and gives the main reason why bird editors capitalize in a way that does not imply that this practice should be extended to the rest of Wikipedia. It has a link to WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, so it also acknowledges that WP:BIRDS technically isn't allowed to do this while still protecting the status quo from overzealous lowercasing. If most of us find this text livable, then we can move on to synching the guidelines. Darkfrog24 (talk)

Oppose any and all proposed changes unless and until my query about lists receives a satisfactory answer (or you can direct me to the proposed answer buried somewhere above). . Ben MacDui 08:59, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

 Done Answered at #macdui. Short version: Nothing proposed here can trump MOS's general principle of consistent style being applied within a single article, and the proposed and extant wording already reiterates that principle explicitly: "Use a consistent style for common names within an article." Until the bird names perennial dispute hopefully some day resolves itself, all common names of all animals/plants would be capitalized in ornithological articles. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 09:35, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I understand that what you are trying to achieve, but I think you are somewhat missing the main point I am making, which is that there are many articles that, when it comes to species, mostly focus on birds, but which mention other species (some of which have non-lower case names in use). Below where you suggest: "This does not have Wikipedia-wide consensus, and should not be applied to other organisms or in other categories of articles." does address this issue as this proposal is clear - you can only use caps if it is only about birds. Whether you can get support for that is another matter. I am interested in an outcome that provides:

• A stable MOS - meaning that it changes only very occassionally (not more than once a month in any of its manifestations and ideally a lot less than that) after due discussion and process;
• A consistent MOS in which articles look and feel similar across the wiki and which is easy to learn - especially for newcomers;
• A MOS that is broadly reflective of styles used elsewhere, as and when that is appropriate.

These are listed in decreasing order of priority. The current discussion is an attempt to provide (as you see it) more of the third, largely at the expense of the first. I am therefore, at best, indifferent to it. My suggestion is that you take out an RfC. Let's not pretend most editors care much what MOS says, it is only really of interest to those concerned with style issues and those wishing to provide recognised content and both are a small minority. Ben MacDui 10:11, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Alternative proposal: Danger Will Robinson! It would ultimately be disastrous to even faintly suggest that "following the practice of most [insert topic here] publications" is a sound basis for such a departure from the MOS, because specialist publications in a tremendous number of fields, from caudate herpetology to chess to juggling to stamp collecting to cooking to aeronautics to law, have a strong tendency to capitalize "Important Stuff in That Field" as an insider term-of-art style. Aside from that, it is not MOS's place to provide what we think WP:BIRDS's justification might be (members of the project actually raise more than one, and not all members are necessarily in agreement on any of them); it's completely out-of-scope. On a minor note, this also wouldn't flow from the preceding sentence in the guideline, which will probably be something like "Common (vernacular) names do not have each word capitalized, except where proper names appear (zebras, mountain maple, but Przewalski's horse)". The "although" construction doesn't work well here, bordering on a non sequitur. We also don't want to imply that local consensus is something that projects can just come up with and push against wider consensus; that's the opposite of what the policy says and what ArbCom has said (and why the WP:BIRDS debate exists and is controversial). And we've also lost the fact that even WP:BIRDS says it's only for ornithology articles. Also, WT:BIRDS discussions I've run across several times do not favor capitalization of regional, un-"official" names, so it's not all "English-language names". In the opposite direction, we should not refer to IOC naming conventions as "official", since Wikipedia has no position on whether that organization is more or less authoritative than any other in the field, and I've seen, again at WT:BIRDS, disagreement about whether IOC even really is the best taxonomic authority for birds; out-of-scope again, as it's not a style matter.

How about:

• WikiProject Birds prefers to capitalize the common names of bird species (Bald Eagle) in ornithological articles. This does not have Wikipedia-wide consensus, and should not be applied to other organisms or in other categories of articles.

I used the "does not have Wikipedia-wide consensus" wording someone else suggested. I think it's weird that anyone finds "controversial" to be a "boo word", but I'd rather just say something equivalent and move on than argue about that, even if I'm equally happy with "This is controversial on Wikipedia," instead. In MOS:CAPS and/or WP:FNAME we can make more extended points, such as not just "common names" but "International Ornithological Congress-published common names", which is the geeky, detailed version of what WP:BIRDS really does, as well as not capitalizing the parts after hyphens. Let's keep the wording lean in WP:MOS proper. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 09:01, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

What is someone to make of "WikiProject X prefers..." Does it mean that if editor X prefers differently, then he should feel free to act according to his own preference? Let's not mask the fact that bird articles are written like that, so anyone who cares about conforming to existing standards (i.e. someone reading the MoS) ought to write their bird article like that as well. Just say (as we do now) that common names of bird species are capitalized in ornithology articles, and add the bit about other organisms/categories (no need for MoS to go into the philosophy of different levels of consensus, either). --Kotniski (talk) 10:18, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree; it is a category error to say that a wikiproject "prefers" something. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 23:08, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Days ago, I tried to replace "WikiProject Birds" with "some editors", the language we have previously used for disputed cases like this several times, but someone or other didn't like it and wanted to name the project. Whatever the wording, MOS should not itself recommend capitalization of birds as an exception, or note that it "is" the way it "is" done, which is another way of saying the same thing, or we've turned this on its ear. It's an exception demanded, against years of vociferous rejection, by a certain small number of editors in an insular group, who have generated a massive controversy in the process of pushing this preference in articlespace. MOS's position is already (since at least 2008) that we have a clear default; our task here and now is to clarify that the MOS observes the fact that the birds project refuses to apply this default to birds, in bird articles, only, and that a notable controversy/lack of consensus exists about that across the project. That's the truth, and the truth is genuinely important here. Alternative wording to "WikiProject Birds prefers to capitalize..." could be "Some editors capitalize..." or "WikiProject Birds capitalizes..." How about:

• WikiProject Birds capitalizes the common names of bird species (Bald Eagle) in ornithological articles. This does not have Wikipedia-wide consensus, and should not be applied to other organisms or in other categories of articles.

Would that resolve the issue? — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 09:20, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I think this is a good compromise that seems to serve the major interests involved without harming any of them. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 19:25, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

It's my understanding that you don't need that comma before "and" because what follows is not an independent clause. I'd also say "articles on other organisms or in other categories" to make it clear that if a pen-tailed treeshrew is mentioned within WP:BIRDS, it should be written "Pen-tailed Treeshrew."

I'm good with it, SMC, but the ones you need to convince are the contributors to WP:BIRDS. Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:19, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

If they have no further comment here, or only raise objections that have already been dealt with, for a reasonable amount of time, WP:CONSENSUS will be satisfied. Revised text:

• WikiProject Birds capitalizes the common names of bird species (Bald Eagle) in ornithological articles. This does not have Wikipedia-wide consensus and should not be applied to articles on other organisms or in other categories.

— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 20:49, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I haven't bothered to comment here recently, because it seems to me that we aren't communicating usefully any longer. I can only repeat what I and Hesperian have told you: it's not only bird articles which use capitals, and there is no consensus here for "should not be applied to articles on other organisms or in other categories". Peter coxhead (talk) 04:56, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Since making the comment above, I've discovered that lepidoptera articles even more overwhelmingly use capitalized common names. Actually I've not yet found one in this list that doesn't capitalize, though I'm not saying there aren't some. The level of consensus in lepidoptera articles seems higher than any other group. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:39, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

The problem with that is that many editors, surely meaning well, have gone around capitalized every other animal name on the system following the birds example. That's actually how this debate got re-started. Thousands and thousands of common names animals in articles on everything from salamaders to horses have been forcibly capitalized by hundreds of editors because they've seen it here and there and thought that was what Wikipedia wanted. But even if there's evidence that insect journals prefer capitalization, it's the same argument the birds project is making, that everyone else is shooting down and has been shooting down for 7 years: It doesn't matter what stylistic conventions are used in specialist zoological journals. WP is not a specialist zoological journal. The only difference is that WP:BIRDS has collectively taken a public "give us capitalization or give us death" stance, and no other project has done that (and, really, it actually appears to be about 10 or so editors in that project, not the whole project). The fact that a bunch of bug articles have capitalization too doesn't really mean or change anything. The insects project like some of the plant projects have discussed the matter a few times and never come to a consensus, so we're just moving past that because the majority of the other projects - primates, mammals, even fish - have abandoned their experiments with capitalizing common names, in the face of seven years of constant criticism from everyone else on the system. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 06:43, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Specific and non-specific common names

Maybe the basic problem here is the lack of clarity in WP:COMMONNAME? WP:BIRDS are capitalising English species names to avoid ambiguity. Other projects routinely capitalize proper names in similar circumstances (A Sea Symphony, Republican Party etc.).

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna) distinguishes between specific and non-specific names: Capitalisation of common names of species says "For specific groups of organisms, there are specific proposed rules of capitalisation based on current and historic usage among those who study the organisms." while Capitalisation of common names of groups says "The common name of a group of species, or an individual creature of indeterminate species, is not capitalised — mouse, owl, kingfisher, surfperch, rove beetle." I think that makes the distinction clear. Disclaimer: Please excuse me if the point I want to make has already been covered. I've spent over an hour reading this discussion, but obviously I haven't absorbed everything, let alone the past history of this issue.--Kleinzach 03:45, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Interpolated later side-comment: WP:BIRDS is not capitalizing to avoid ambiguity, though they raise that as a weak excuse sometimes, and people tear it apart because it's nonsense. No one in their right mind would write "The Mexican jay is one of many Mexican jays"; they'd write "The Mexican jay is one of many jays native to Mexico." I've made this point (with these exact words) several times already in this debate, but people still keep missing it. The "capitalize for clarity and disambiguation" argument is utterly bankrupt. It's been demonstrated fallacious for seven years running. WP:BIRDS capitalizes bird names because they are used to it and like it. By that reasoning, I could go on a AWB spree and change every instance of spacing between numbers and units of measurement to not have spacing simply because I'm more used to "3px" than "3 px". Or whatever other rampage of chaos you can think of based on WP:ILIKEIT, which is precisely what this is. What WP:BIRDS has done is such a rampage. They've forced, through almost a decade of editwarring, capitalization is literally tens of thousands of articles. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 12:50, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

But it doesn't. It amounts to "do whatever you want with species names, no need for consistency". It's blanket license to pretend that WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy doesn't exist, and have every biology-related project come up with its own conflicting "guideline", something that was abandoned several years ago (except by WP:BIRDS, who are entrenched in a pro-caps position, unlike any other project on the system). The wording at WP:FNAME is a holdover from years ago, before that policy and before MOS said "use lower case", which it has since at least 2008. (It's actually worse than a holdover, but an attempt to game the system: there's a strong indication from their own talk page posts that WP:BIRDS has tried to overtly control the wording in the naming conventions with the specific intent that it conflict with MOS, on the basis that they'll then feel free to ignore MOS; it makes much more sense to have the pages in synch, and acknowledge that WP:BIRDS is doing its own thing, at least for now, than to continue playing games like this). The entire genesis of this thread is that WP:FAUNA and some other pages have been out of step with MOS, resulting in massive confusion and mess, with editors just completely randomly capitalizing or not capitalizing common names of animals and fighting over it in every available forum for 7 years straight. Anyway, no one here, on any side of the debate, has suggested that any issue had arisen due to confusion between species and generic names, though it may be hard to notice that, given the length of the discussion. :-) — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 22:27, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I can see that you feel strongly about this. As a neutral, non-birder who came to this discussion by accident, I am basically, if not enthusiastically, pro sentence style capitalisation which is line with my training as a (print) editor. Limiting the overuse of capitals is indeed good. However we must recognise that the birding community (off and on Wikipedia) made their rules for a reason — to avoid ambiguity, which means it's an accuracy issue. (Other branches of the natural sciences don't have this problem to the same extent, either because English names don't exist or because multiple variations of (English) species name by colour, size, markings etc don't exist.)

If you are sincere about resolving this issue — and I'm sure you are — can you can step back from the idea that WP:BIRDS are out to subvert WP is some way? I'd suggest first improving the MoS itself, in particular the poorly drafted WP:COMMONNAME. If we have an MoS that editors respect, it will be much easier to resolve these differences.

Regarding the confusion between species and generic names, my contribution may be original but User:KimvdLinde's previous comments here approach the same problem, albeit from a different direction. (BTW, I understand that she has retired from WP as a result of this discussion, which seems a great shame. Have you considered asking her back? Or is WP:AGF completely dead here?) --Kleinzach 03:15, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I have no belief in the idea that WP:BIRDS are out to subvert Wikipedia. I do feel that several controlling editors in that project are badly misprioritizing. It's exactly like editors who want to write all kinds of in-universe stuff in articles on fiction franchises, or editors of cat articles who put in all kinds of suppositional overgeneralized nonsense from Cat Fancy magazine like "Manx cats are intelligent, active and fun-loving". People write about what they care about in a style familiar to them. That doesn't mean it's always appropriate. The issue to me is that it has to stop spreading from the birds project. Capitalization of animal names is a rampant, virulent memetic epidemic on Wikipedia. I've been periodically reporting on it here for several years, and it's worsening by the day. The only way I can see to fix this, without more bickering, is to list birds as an exception but make it clear that the default is lower case otherwise, and make sure the guidelines all agree on this. If the birds project wants to spend another 7 years fending off criticism from everyone else about their ungrammatical quirks, so be it. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 07:14, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

It's a shame if Kim has left, but it seems to me that there is no desire to "kick the birders", just an honest request for wording to clarify the existing practice in the MoS to avoid conflict, without adding a guideline for which there is no consensus. Rich Farmbrough, 08:49, 19 January 2012 (UTC).

It is a shame, especially since much of the point has been to find some way to allow WP:BIRDS to actually keep their exception at least provisionally, but bolster the guidelines to simply stop the capitalization from further spreading into other articles. I'm not sure what to say to help someone feel better if they've decided to quit the entire project, while actually getting their way, just because their rationales and justifications are argued with on a guideline talk page. It's rather mystifying. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:31, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

You still don't get it that you are the one that insists of kicking whole groups of editors with codifying your discontent in the MOS. Maybe what you should do is actually make a tally of those who participated in the discussion and see if you actually do have a consensus here instead of declaring it unilaterally. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 22:55, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

This side discussion has died off. I want to make the point that the principal reason we are here with a mile-long debate is that Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna)#Capitalisation of common names of species makes confusing "distinctions" and advises, in blatant contravention of official Wikipedia policy, that WikiProjects can just go do whatever they want (and various other guidelines also offer conflicting advice, none of them in synch with WP:MOS, which is naturally the controlling guideline on a style matter like this). So starting a subthread the basis of which is "Well, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna)#Capitalisation of common names of species makes the following distinctions, so maybe we should try that" is completely missing the point. It's like responding to "Help, my house is on fire!" with "Hey, I just lit your house on fire. Is there anything I can do to help?" — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 12:54, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

PS: Another way of looking at this is that WP:FAUNA's statement that "For specific groups of organisms, there are specific proposed rules of capitalisation based on current and historic usage among those who study the organisms." is quite true, and we don't care. Wikipedia has no interest in those arcane debates, only in writing for a general encyclopedia audience, who do not expect and will not tolerate complete bollocks like "Johnson had a Rock Pigeon but it was eaten by his Domestic Cat, who choked to death on it, so he instead got a Dog and two Goldfish". If I had 1,000 years I don't think I'd come up with any way to make this clearer. Yes, we all understand that specialist publications in certain fields like to capitalize common names of species. If you read tabletop gaming materials, they capitalize all kinds of crap too, like "Game" and "Army". My pool magazines routinely capitalize things like Nine-ball and Straight Pool. It simply isn't germane to anything we're doing here to build an encyclopedia. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 16:18, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

If I may, I'd like to return to Kleinzach's posts of 03:45, 16 January 2012:

• "Maybe the basic problem here is the lack of clarity in WP:COMMONNAME? WP:BIRDS are capitalising English species names to avoid ambiguity. ... Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna) distinguishes between specific and non-specific names:

• Capitalisation of common names of species says "For specific groups of organisms, there are specific proposed rules of capitalisation based on current and historic usage among those who study the organisms." while
• Capitalisation of common names of groups says "The common name of a group of species, or an individual creature of indeterminate species, is not capitalised — mouse, owl, kingfisher, surfperch, rove beetle." I think that makes the distinction clear."

And of 03:15, 17 January 2012:

• "Limiting the overuse of capitals is indeed good. However we must recognise that the birding community (off and on Wikipedia) made their rules for a reason — to avoid ambiguity, which means it's an accuracy issue. (Other branches of the natural sciences don't have this problem to the same extent, either because English names don't exist or because multiple variations of (English) species name by colour, size, markings etc don't exist.) ... I'd suggest first improving the MoS itself, in particular the poorly drafted WP:COMMONNAME. If we have an MoS that editors respect, it will be much easier to resolve these differences."

It's my impression that many of the posts following Kleinzach's are not only excessively argumentative, but are essentially irrelevant to this Specific and non-specific common names section. This has nothing to do with "specialist publications". Milkunderwood (talk) 09:39, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Wrapping this up: We clearly have a consensus to move forward

Enough time has passed and the discussion has slowed enough that we can take stock of what's emerged and move forward. There is a clear consensus to do so.

“ Johnson had a Rock Pigeon but it was eaten by his Ball Python, who choked to death on it, so he instead got a Dog and two Goldfish. ”

That sentence encapsulates what this debate is about; ornithology is a red herring. This is not a facetious example; those are in fact the "official" or most widely recognized common names of all four of those species. It's crucial that we understand what kind of a "Wikipedia is written by blithering morons" Pandora's box is already open. If you think this is silly or exaggerated, go spend a few hours reading animal articles and come back and report how many you find with exactly that kind of capitalization (I used Przewalski's horse as an example in the MOS text because it was one of the many I have rescued from this nonsense). See the history of lion for people editwarring for the capitalization of "Lions". Yes, really. See the similar fight at bottlenose dolphin and (importantly) the squabble over whether or not to make bottlenose dolphin be about the species, since renamed common bottlenose dolphin, and Bottlenose Dolphin about the genus! I couldn't make this stuff up. People were actually going to disambiguate by capitalization (notably in exactly the opposite direction as the birds project - they were going to capitalize the group, not the specific species)! Enough is way more than enough at this point.

WP:Manual of Style exists for three main reasons:

1. To provide guidance on style issues, i.e. to answer editor questions on style
2. To set a baseline set of rules that everyone agrees to abide by so that every article doesn't erupt into constant flamewars about style issues
3. To ensure that Wikipedia's output looks professional, trustworthy and consistent (especially within an article, but also between articles as much as possible).

MOS has dismally failed at all three of these goals on this matter, despite having a clear consensus against capitalization of animal common names since at least 2008 (language saying so has been semi-stable since then; versions that did so predated this stability, several times, and debate at WP:VPP in 2007 strongly suggested that virtually everyone was on board but birds.) There appears to be no further question or debate that this failure has occurred, that MOS needs to address the points raised, that all of them are valid, and that the solution need to be consistently applied across all the relevant guidelines (in compatible, not identical wording).

MOS's role here is to set a default, note the existence of debate about a possible exception without endorsing it, and discourage others from starting more conflicts by capitalizing elsewhere. MOS has no WP:ARBCOM-like role to play as arbiter of the birds-related dispute.

Current, temporary wording in MOS

• Common (vernacular) names do not have each word capitalized, except where proper names appear (zebras, mountain maple, but Przewalski's horse). As an exception to this general rule, some editors prefer to capitalize the official common names of birds (Bald Eagle) in ornithological articles.^{[under discussion]} Use a consistent style for common names within an article. Create redirects from alternative capitalization forms of article titles.

I intend to replace this with one of the following two alternatives, based on a review of all of the above, and returning to the...

...itemized points that needed to be covered:

The default is to begin each word in common (vernacular) names with lower case except were proper names appear in them [or the word begins a sentence or list item – obvious exceptions not worth mentioning]. This applies to all common names, not just species [families, orders, subspecies, etc. – too much detail here; save it for WP:FNAME. Some editors [a.k.a. WP:WikiProject Birds prefer to capitalize bird common names [all parts of bird common names, except those immediately after a hyphen – too much detail here; save it for WP:FAUNA], in ornithology articles (only); this remains controversial (a.k.a. there is no site-wide consensus that this is an acceptable practice, a.k.a. this is not consistently regarded as correct) and should not be used outside such articles, even for birds. Only one capitalization style should be used in any given article.

Consensus was arrived at on every one of these points, if not their exact wording. All of these are addressed in both versions of the proposed wording, to the extent that they need to be in WP:MOS itself (we can drill down into details in sub-guidelines). E.g., the zebras example covers the fact that we mean this applies to larger groups as well as species, without us having to say it explicitly.

I've underlined the difference between the versions:

Version 1

• Common (vernacular) names are given in lower case, except where proper names appear (zebras, mountain maple, but Przewalski's horse). As an exception to this general rule, some editors prefer to capitalize the official common names of bird species (Golden Eagle) in ornithological articles; this remains controversial on Wikipedia, and the style should not be applied to other categories of articles. Use a consistent style for common names within an article. Create redirects from alternative capitalization forms of article titles.

Version 2

• Common (vernacular) names are given in lower case, except where proper names appear (zebras, mountain maple, but Przewalski's horse). As an exception to this general rule, some editors prefer to capitalize the official common names of bird species (Golden Eagle) in ornithological articles; this does not have Wikipedia-wide consensus, and the style should not be applied to other categories of articles. Use a consistent style for common names within an article. Create redirects from alternative capitalization forms of article titles.

(I got rid of the awkward "do not have each word capitalized" wording, and changed it to refer to "lower case" instead of "capitalization" or "upper case" because we should advise for a positive not against a negative when possible, just as a matter of good writing. There is no link to WP:BIRDS, because we do not want to seem blamey or attacking, nor, conversely, do we want to give the impression that WikiProjects can barge in and demand exceptions all over the place. This is about avoiding conflict, not elevating project "authority" or assigning "blame". Also, "species" is an important distinction with regard to the the birds thing, and cannot be lost, or the passage will misrepresent WP:BIRDS's actual position.)

These each cover all of the points that were identified as needed coverage and on which there is a clear consensus (yes, there is a clear consensus that the WP:BIRDS preference is controversial, just not on whether to use that specific word.

Poll

I ask that interested editors indicate a clear preference for one alternative or the other if possible, and try to refrain from launching into another protracted debate about this word or that, much less whether we should proceed, which is a foregone conclusion. I've based the wording on the entire debate above and tried to factor in everyone's concerns as much as possible, including those of WP:BIRDS. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 16:18, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• I prefer the first version ("controversial" vs. "no Wikipedia-wide consensus"), because it actually represents the truth that in seven years of the debate virtually everyone but one WikiProject have agreed that "Johnson had a Rock Pigeon" is not how we write an encyclopedia. Saying there "isn't a Wikipedia-wide consensus" about what WP:BIRDS is doing is wishy-washy spindoctoring. Worse yet, it not-so-subtly suggests other projects should rise up and demand exceptions for whatever pet peeve they have. The evidence I've compiled strongly suggests that the WP:BIRDS exception is in fact one of the most controversial ideas on the entire system for years. Meanwhile, the editor who labeled "controversial" a "boo-word" and objected to it has simply abandoned the discussion, without ever explaining why they felt that way about it; I don't feel a strong need to concede to arguments that are undefended by their proponents. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 16:18, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
• Neither. The word "exception" means that the MoS endorses the common practice on WP:Birds. It doesn't. We should say that the practice has become common or has local consensus, etc. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:35, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd be okay with "local consensus" including the link to the policy saying local consensuses can't trump site-wide guidelines, as long as we don't lose "controversial" or "no Wikipedia-wide consensus". Did you have a preference for either of those? The most important matter is to discourage the spread of stuff like "Ground Hog" and "Guinea Pig", not deprecate WP:BIRDS practice in particular wording. That it's controversial needs to remain. PS: If we mentioned local consensus we'd have to include WP:BIRDS by name again (that being the locus). — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:03, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Something like:

• Common (vernacular) names are given in lower case, except where proper names appear (zebras, mountain maple, but Przewalski's horse). Some editors (WP:WikiProject Birds) prefer a local consensus to capitalize the official common names of bird species (Bald Eagle) in ornithological articles. This remains controversial on Wikipedia, the Manual of Style does not endorse the practice, and the style should not be applied to other categories of articles. Use a consistent style for common names within an article. Create redirects from alternative capitalization forms of article titles.}}

— SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:14, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

PS: Some of what I've done with WP:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Animals, plants, and other organisms (if it hasn't been reverted) may be useful here. The text is less compressed there. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 19:44, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

• NONE of the options. MOS is not to codify the discontent of some editors. It should describe the reality and nothing more. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 22:57, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

That's what it's doing. We're not telling WP:BIRDS to stop capitalizing, and I can't understand why you won't see that. We're bending over backwards to try to keep your project happy, while (far more importantly) saying that people cannot willy-nilly capitalize all over the place just because your project won't stop doing it. This has been a general Wikipedia-wide consensus recorded here for over four years. We're simply improving the language, to stop this rampant capitalization. There is no debate that all of the points in the section are valid, only how to express them. Please stop misinterpreting everything said here as some kind of personal attack on you and your friends. It's getting disruptive. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 00:26, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

No, you are codifying that they are WRONG! And that EVERYBODY else at WIKIPEDIA is disagreeing with it, except those 'stupid' bird editors who have no fucking clue about how to write proper English. They must be so incredibly stupid not to know how to write the names of their own species. Incredible. And because of that, it should be highlighted in the all mighty "Manual of Style" (Please bow everybody) that these people do not wish to bow for the almighty "Manual of Style". -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 05:59, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

It's hard not to interpret constant sniping and attacks as attacks. I get that you aren't happy with us (God knows we're sick of you trying to impose conformity where it isn't wanted), but it is hard for you to paint yourself as the arbitrator between two warring partties when you are one of the warring factions. Sabine's Sunbird talk 00:39, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I never claimed to be an arbiter. I have an agenda. It's stopping the massive fallout all over Wikipedia of a) what your project is doing, and b) inconsistent wording at misc. guideline pages that conflicts with what has been a solid MOS consensus for 4+ years. Look, I've given up on your project. Your [that's the collective you, not you personally] years of browbeating have worn me and most everyone else down. This issue is not about your project, it's about the rest of the encyclopedia. People have been capitalizing things like "Lion", I kid you not, following your example (remember, your project is quite proud of the fact that its made your capitalization preference nearly 100% uniform across over ten thousand articles; that's very, very visible), and the confusing guidelines. You yourself say, multiple times (I can provide you diffs if you like) that you and WP:BIRDS do not intend for your capitalization practice to extend beyond ornithology articles. Please stop getting in the way of others trying to ensure that actually becomes the case and stays that way. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 01:03, 5 February 2012 (UTC) PS: Nice WP:OWNism there; bird articles aren't yours, and aren't a "where" you can build a wall around and tell the wider to community to go soak its collective head. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 02:34, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

• Neither option 1 or 2 - the capitalization of bird names is not controversial. It is how it is done in the scientific press, and in the common press, and as WP:COMMONNAME - it's only an issue because some Wikipedia editors insist that they shouldn't be capitalized in the same fashion as they are capitalized everywhere but on Wikipedia. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 00:38, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

It's exceedingly controversial on Wikipedia. This has been proven beyond all doubt. And that's what matters here. The capitalization is not done in the common press at all, anywhere, ever, other than in specialty bird books. This too has been shown conclusively in previous debates on your own project's talk page. It's not "everywhere but on Wikipedia", it's nowhere except bird books and orn. journals. Not encyclopedias, dictionaries, newspapers, non-bird magazines, not even non-ornithological zoology journals that publish ornithology articles obey your capitalization scheme in such articles, another fact that's been repeatedly demonstrated in these debates over the years. I have swept together a partial record of them, but have several more years' worth to pore over. Even what I have so far proves what I've said here conclusively, more than once even. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 01:03, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment/question The statement, "Use a consistent style for common names within an article", suggests that despite the forgoing guidelines, it is still okay to capitalize common nouns as long as it's done consistently, but this sentence is only intended to apply in Wikiproject Birds. Can we say: "Use a consistent style for common names within each Wikiproject Birds article." or something to that effect? Jojalozzo 02:48, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

That would be seen as directly legitimizing the WP:BIRDS practice, which is and has for seven years been hotly disputed generally and which MOS does not sanction (it simply notes the existence of it and the dispute about it). It's not MOS's job to say what the resolution of that dispute it, any more than it's ArbCom's job to come in and say how to format quotations. The implication is clear that only in an ornithology article would a common name be capitalized, and in which all of them would be (e.g. including of prey animals as well as birds) so that the article doesn't veer back and forth between UC and lc, just as WP:ENGVAR prevents veering back and for between US and UK English in the same article. The default being to not capitalize common names of animals at all short-circuits the "loophole" you're preceiving of "Ah HA, it's okay to write some random article where I capitalize everything", so the clarification wouldn't seem to actually clarify anything. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 03:57, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

No. It means that if the article is about the snort-breasted hawk, say "The Snort-breasted Hawk likes to eat Pen-tailed Shrews." If the article is about pen-tailed shrews, say "The snort-breasted hawk likes to eat pen-tailed shrews." It means that, within any given article, either capitalize common names or don't. We're trying to prevent people from thinking that they're supposed to capitalize bird names everywhere and lowercase all other names everywhere. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:25, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I got it. Put me down for #1 since it appears that there is consensus against capitalization of common names except for some editors who work on bird articles. Jojalozzo 16:28, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

• Both are fine—To answer darkfrog I don't think either implies that the specialist-style capitalization is anything other than local consensus? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 05:19, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
• You know what? Support. I'm sick to death of this fight, I really am. I dispute the contention that species names are common nouns, or that we in WP:BIRD think you should capitalise common nouns, but beyond that if this provides the MOS crowd with what they want and lets us get on with writing about our subject, well then fine. If, on the other hand, it's just the thin end of the wedge to provide a wikilawayerish (is that a word? It is now!) way to impose conformism at a later date, well, then the fight continues. But I am mighty sick of fighting. Sabine's Sunbird talk 05:39, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

It was more of a "what language is better" question, than "yes or no". — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:01, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. I would much prefer a slightly less inflammatory/redundant but equivalent version that simply stops after "ornithological articles": "[...] As an exception to this general rule, some editors prefer to capitalize the official common names of bird species (Bald Eagle) in ornithological articles. Use a consistent style for common names within an article. [...]" I believe the specific language "ornithological articles" already makes it quite clear that this is strongly discouraged outside bird articles, and that the language "some editors" makes it clear that there is not necessarily wide consensus on capitalising names of birds species. Dcoetzee 12:34, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

That's essentially what the language used to look like, and (in combination with conflicting sub-guideline language at MOS:CAPS and elsewhere) it led directly to people capitalizing things like Bottlenose Dolphin and Lion, because the wording was so weak that it strongly implied that any group of "some editors" (or, some versions said "WikiProject", which means "group of some editors") could decide, willy-nilly, to go capitalize things in any category of articles they wanted, from jellyfish to horses, as long as they did it consistently. I.e., what this proposal is about is how to not word the section like what you suggest, since that's how we go into this mess in the first place. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:01, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

• Neither. Delete all after "ornithological articles". There is no need to comment further. The capitalisation of species names is not limited to birds either. It is common practice for all animals. And the example above is spurious and misleading because Rock Pigeon and Ball Python are species names which are commonly capitalised whereas dog and goldfish are generic names which are not.--Bermicourt (talk) 18:54, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Not true at all. There is in fact an explicit convention against caps for mammals; see various research on the topic from previous versions of this debate [leopard#Secondary and Tertiary Sources on Capitalization|here]. See also Dog and Goldfish, a subspecies and a species, and these are their common names ("common dog" is also a common name of the dog in some authoritative sources). — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 04:13, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• Both are OK, but I'd choose version 1 if a choice is needed. Dicklyon (talk) 04:13, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

I've already explained my position on this several times, above and in previous debate cycles. Here, I will instead just summarize a few of key points that have arisen in the course of the debate, especially the "Well, WP:FAUNA says..." non-argument, as well as the "Well, some insect and plant editors capitalize too..." point and the slippery slope that it does actually lead to. A third point is the notion that MOS can just go screw itself and the naming conventions can do whatever they want, because WP:AT is a policy now. It's a sore misunderstanding of how policy and guidelines work here.

Some further rationale points

You can safely skip this unless you want a compressed recap of previous arguments, which might actually be helpful for some, but would be tedious for others. I do realize that some sub-guidelines here, especially Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna)#Capitalisation of common names of species, have proposed a much less proscriptive approach. This is the entire reason we're here talking about this now: It led directly to chaos and a profusion of animal name capitalization. WP:FAUNA is unquestionably and necessarily subordinate to MOS when it comes to style matters like capitalization. There's also the issue that there's strong evidence[3][4] that, effectively, WP:BIRDS has tried to control wording to favor their preference at WP:FAUNA (starting back when it was still just a section of WP:Naming conventions, which is now WP:AT), and intentionally ignore WP:MOS, which the project (or, rather, its self-appointed editwarrior elite) sees as an antagonist to their interests. Aside from violating WP:NOT#BATTLEGROUND, this is blatant gaming the system, wikilawyering, and asking the other parent. It means that WP:FAUNA's wording on the matter would be effectively moot, if not for the more important fact that it is a large part of the problem we're trying to address in the first place and is thus grist for the mill. I do also realize that some editors of plant and butterfly articles prefer to capitalize common names in those areas, because, as with birds, their field-specific literature has a tendency tendency in this direction, sometimes strong. But that doesn't matter. Wikipedia does what a preponderance of reliable general sources does, and does not kowtow to special interest's typographic quirks when they conflict with general practice. If it were WP:STARWARS or WP:CRICKET insisting on capitalization "conventions" that defy all non-specialist publications, this debate would have been over seven years ago in favor of lower case, and we all know that. The only reason that birds are even mentioned here as a controversial exception is that one WikiProject is so tendentiously entrenched on the matter that it's allegedly better to appease them for now than to engender any further strife. I think most of us know this will eventually go to ArbCom, and that ArbCom will say "WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is policy for a reason, namely WikiProjects trying to make up and enforce their own rules; the end." So I can tolerate the "birds exception" in the sharply limited form delineated here and let it go for now, even though I think it sets a very bad precedent, and is a recipe for future "our random project wants a random exception too!" headaches. Like, "WP:GAMES likes to capitalize Dice and Cards and Ball! Change MOS!" (I'm one of that project's most active editors, so I'm being a bit facetious, but only a little; re-read the sentence above about Johnson and his pets. And you would not believe the number of times I've had to de-capitalize things in game articles). Arguments along the line of "But, all the articles about [insert some organism type here] art capitalized already" are meaningless, since all they indicate is that someone capitalized a lot, and other people followed suit thinking there was a convention to follow here; there is and has been for over 4 years now, and it is to not capitalize. The "it would take too much effort to undo" argument is a combination of two classic arguments to avoid here: WP:MERCY and WP:EFFORT. More importantly, it is precisely this "well, maybe we can make an exception for this special interest or that" attitude that WP:BIRDS editors and a few others have editwarred into the naming conventions, against MOS, that has led to mass confusion on animal name capitalization all over Wikipedia, like a wildfire burning a swath across the whole system. What we cannot let go any longer, even if willing to compromise for now on this birds business, is rampant capitalization of animal names in other articles, and that is precisely what is happening at an alarming rate, because WP:MOS has not been clear enough and the other guidelines, especially the "projects can do whatever they like" nonsense at WP:FAUNA that blatantly contradicts policy at WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, have not been synched with MOS (and yes, MOS does trump AT/NC on this; slapping a {{policy}} tag on WP:AT doesn't magically mean it can make up its own style rules on things like capitalization, it simply means that the "it's just a guideline" argument no longer applies to article naming rules people don't want to follow; AT policy and NC guidelines still derive their style rules from MOS, or we'd have utter chaos).

I've been reporting here for several years (see archives, or more conveniently, my index of the debates) that this animal capitalization problem is getting palpably and progressively worse, yet we've done nothing to improve the situation since 2008, when "don't capitalize" became a loose default, but wasn't clear enough. Four years is too long to not clarify MOS, and synchronize the guidelines, to halt the spread of this nonsense. The time to act is now. The consensus to move forward is clear. How (not whether) to play verbal brown-nose with WP:BIRDS has been the only real sticking point, and even the member of that project who was insistent that "controversial is a 'boo word'" has left, without ever explaining why they felt that way about it. I want to be clear that I see no reason to genuflect before a small group of editors calling themselves a WikiProject to begin with, but I'm willing to see that there's a rough consensus that we will do so for now.

Just for the record:

Version 3: Here's my actually preferred wording:

Version X Common (vernacular) names do not have each word capitalized, except where proper names appear (zebras, mountain maple, bald eagle, but Przewalski's horse). While some specialist publications in certain fields of zoology and botany capitalize common names of species, under various rules that conflict between fields (and even within the same field), this practice is not suitable in a general purpose encyclopedia. It is more important for Wikipedia to be consistent from article to article, and to reflect the usage in mainstream publications and style guides, as the majority of our readers expect, than to attempt to reflect changing and conflicting patterns of usage in narrowly topical field guides or journals. In cases where ambiguity or confusion could result, rewrite to avoid, as usual: Bad writing: The Mexican jay is one of many Mexican jays. Good writing: The Mexican jay is one of many jays native to Mexico.

Now, while everyone mulls this over, I'm going to go eat a Tuna sandwich and feed my Cat before he goes outside to chase some Rock Doves. Hopefully he will not catch a New Mexico Meadow Jumping Mouse, since they may be endangered.— SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 16:18, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Hmm... Except that it should be "...I'm going to eat a tuna sandwich and feed my cat before he goes outside to chase some Rock Doves." Because tuna is not a full species name, and neither is cat!  :) MeegsC | Talk 00:21, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I forgot that there are several kinds of tuna. But "cat" or "domestic cat", depending upon the authority consulted, are both recognized common names of the domestic cat. Maybe I should have said "Dog"; I don't know of any sources that use "Domestic Dog" as an "official" common name of the dog. Heh. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 00:40, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay, so if he's chasing "Rock Pigeons" (the common name as indicated by the International Ornithological Congress), do you mean Rock Pigeons or rock pigeons? See the problem?  :) MeegsC | Talk 00:49, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Right; I meant rock pigeon; I wasn't aware that the carrier pigeon was just a variety. Changed it in the example text. I know you're joking, but for the genus, we'd write something like "the rock pigeon genus". — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 01:52, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

The dog is a subspecies of the grey wolf anyway...Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:13, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Not according to many if not most taxonomic authorities, who classify it as its own species, just as they classify the cat as F. catus instead of F. silvestris catus even though we know from genetic studies that it should be classified as the latter. Look, I can dig up a different animal if you want. The domestic ferret or something. That's not the point. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 01:52, 5 February 2012 (UTC) I correct myself. I hadn't read up on dogs in years and years, and according to the article here, they have finally decided to call it a subspecies instead of C. familiarus. But, it's still an okay example, since the common name of the subspecies is still "dog" (or "Dog" as capitalizers would have it) or in some sources "common dog". No big deal either way. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 02:02, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

• Here's another version to ponder:

Generally, common (vernacular) names do not have each word capitalized on Wikipedia, except where proper names appear (zebras, mountain maple, gray wolf, but Przewalski's horse). Some specialist publications in certain fields of zoology and botany capitalize common names of species, but this practice is discouraged in a general purpose encyclopedia. It is more important for Wikipedia to be consistent from article to article, and to reflect the usage in mainstream publications and style guides, as the majority of our readers expect, than to attempt to reflect changing and conflicting patterns of usage in narrowly topical field guides or journals. Note that although the de facto capitalization of the English-language names of bird species has local consensus at WP:BIRDS (following the practice of most academic and non-professional ornithology publications), this is controversial on Wikipedia and is strongly discouraged both there and elsewhere. When ambiguity or confusion could result, rewrite to avoid:

Bad writing: The American elm is one of many American elms.

Good writing: The American elm is one of many elms native to the Americas. Natureguy1980 (talk) 09:06, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't like this one, actually. It is not important for Wikipedia to be consistent from article to article. ENGVAR celebrates that there are different ways of doing things. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:30, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for conceding that it is not important for Wikipedia to be consistent from article to article. Can we now stop the assault on the bird editors for not being consistent with other articles?-- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 16:01, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Intra-article consistency is a long-standing principle on Wikipedia. Also, no part of this has been an assault. SmC's original suggested wording would have protected articles on WP:Birds from overzealous de-capitalization. This is about establishing that the practice should not be spread to articles outside WP:Birds. Technically, you guys are violating the MoS; we're conceding that we can't stop you, but we don't want it to look like the MoS endorses capitalization, because then editors will do it in articles in which it is not appropriate by even specialist reasoning. Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:20, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

No one else concedes that. Now, why do you keep trying to make this about birds and using violent language? The entire point of this debate has been to carve out a niche for the birds project (not because what it does makes sense in a generalist encyclopedia, but because it is so tendentious on the issue that hell will freeze over before it stops capitalizing, and the strife isn't worth it) to firewall it, so that a) the bickering at least settles down some and b) every other editor on the system stops going around capitalizing things like Lion and Bottlenose Dolphin. Please stop trying to cloud and derail the debate. You indicated that this debate burned you so much you almost quit Wikipedia over it. So why throw more gasoline/petrol on the fire? — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:19, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I can express myself as I feel the situation. There is NO need for the inflamatory language tyou propose to be added to the MOS, and you keep insisting. And you yourself have stated repeatedly that this is just the first stage in your long-term battle plan to rid WP of Capitalized Bird Names. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 18:59, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I said no such thing; please stop intentionally miscasting my statements and making up statements I never made. I said I oppose the WP:BIRDS practice and am making no promises not to do so in the future ("I will vote my conscience any time the matter comes up" I said), even if attempting to broker a compromise now to reduce the strife level and stop everyone and their Dog from emulating what WP:BIRDS is doing. Having an opinion about one side of a controversy has nothing to do with whether or not one believes MOS must acknowledge that the controversy exists in the first place instead of try to falsely arbitrate that the controversy is over. I've also stated a belief that regardless of my position – "If I were hit by a bus tomorrow" – that the encyclopedia will eventually settle on lower case consistently, because this is what's best for a general encyclopedia, it's what virtually all non-specialist publications do, and far, far too many editors and (much more importantly) readers find the capitalization practice jarring and objectionable. You're outnumbered more than 1,000:1, ultimately, even if it takes another 7 years of criticism for your project to get the point. Because I feel this way, I no longer really care that the birds project is capitalizing bird common names; what I care about is stopping this "capitalize it because it's an animal!" meme from spreading any further, and it is all over the place. Without the "we have an official, global published standard" rationale that your project claims for bird names. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 15:34, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

(Before you go off on yet another repeated tangent about "we have an official, global published standard", no one in the debate has ever disputed that fact, but rather whether it has jack to do with writing an encyclopedia. Reread the many paragraphs by others, above, in the previous discussions, which you particiated in directly, about why reliable specialist sources about [insert topic] are not more reliable than reliable generalist sources about grammar and style when it comes to matters of grammar and style in a general publication, even about [insert topic]. I'm not going to recycle those arguments. Your constant WP:IDHT gaming is a waste of my and everyone else's time.) — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 15:34, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Darkfrog24, I think that's a serious misinterpretation of MOS. WP:ENGVAR is an exception, not the rule, took many years to arrive at, and fights still break out over its interpretation and applicability; it's a compromise on massively intractable, side-wide problem, which the birds issue is not. The one of the main purposes of MOS English: is consistency across the system, or we'd simply delete it. Very, very few of its advice sections say or imply anything along the lines of "Just do it consistently within the article and don't worry about consistency with other articles", because they are absolutely intended for consistency across as well as within articles. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:06, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

The entire point of "my version" was that it made no mention of any alleged "exceptions" at all. If someone wants to assert one, let them cite WP:IAR. That was the idea. If we're going to add back in an exception, we might as well return the language higher up that is the subject of the poll. As for the specific suggestion, I'm not sure I understand it: "Note that although the de facto capitalization of the English-language names of bird species has local consensus at WP:BIRDS (following the practice of most academic and non-professional ornithology publications), this is controversial on Wikipedia and is strongly discouraged both there and elsewhere." This appears to be simply a direct verbal assault against WP:BIRDS, if I'm correctly parsing it: "capitalization of the English-language names of bird species...is strongly discouraged...at WP:BIRDS". So, it seems like you (Natureguy1980) are essentially proposing to add back in mention of WP:BIRDS just so we can bash them. That's not what MOS is for. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:25, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

If you believe that it is not widely discouraged, then why are we having this discussion in the first place?!?!?! Natureguy1980 (talk) 18:37, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I just don't see the point in that language. The proposal versions get the point across without making it so personal. The difference: A) The proposal versions effectively say "the default is to use lc; some project wants to not do so, and that's controversial; don't do what they're doing and create more controversy, just follow the default". B) Your version effectively says "the default is to use lc; some project wants to not do so, and not only is this controversial, how dare they even try."  :-) It's not MOS's job to "strongly discourage" the activities of a specific project, but to encourage certain practices and where necessary discourage others, plus sometimes we have to note where there is no consensus or there's a controversy. As I've said in response to some poll comments, people seem to be mixing in feelings that MOS has some ArbCom-like role to play here, as arbiter of whether or not the birds debate is over and where the pieces allegedly fell; it doesn't. We set a default, note the existence of debate about a possible exception without endorsing it, and discourage others from starting more conflicts by capitalizing elsewhere. The end. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:49, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Once again the example given is misleading because Rock Dove is a species (i.e. proper) name and tuna and cat are not. The latter is straightforward - no capitalisation. As far as species are concerned, the problem is that the sources also vary in their conventions, so we should not be surprised if Wikipedians can't agree which way to go. It might be simpler to try and agree on which international authority/ies to adopt and follow their convention. At least we'd be focussing on sources more than opinions. HTH. --Bermicourt (talk) 19:02, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

That would miss the forest for the trees: no one but the geekiest of biological specialists is ever going to know or remember the details of hyper-specialized rulesets like that, or GAF about complying with them at all, or know how. It would just lead to more editwarring, on a massive scale, as snail nerds and fern nerds and whatever got into revert-fests with every editor on the system, including thousands of noobs who'd feel bitten, who didn't edit "their" articles "correctly". The simple solution is to set a default, based on virtually all non-specialist sources, of "don't capitalize the common names of species". That's why MOS did just that in 2008 or so. It's not about preferring opinions over sources, it's about preferring setting a consistent, prescriptive, generalist rule that people can follow (because it's a rule, not because it's "right" for any particular camp) and not verbally kill each other over, instead of every specialist camp declaring their own "standard" for articles they effectively try to control against "warriors" who disagree with their typography, and doing it all based on sources they will internally argue to the death about when it comes to which one is "most reliable" and should be followed, especially when it comes to, say, American vs. European taxonomic authorities. Playing with matches in a fireworks factory. 05:48, 7 February 2012 (UTC) PS: I already conceded that I'd forgotten there are multiple kinds of tuna. Maybe I should have said turkey. As for cat, the "official" common name of the cat in some taxonomic sources is in fact "cat" (in others it's "domestic cat"), and most authorities classify it as its own species. I apologize for constructing a poor example, but I already gave a great one; search this page for "Johnson". — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 05:51, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Please clarify the process envisioned here. I'm not comfortable moving forward based only on the thin support that's developed in this discussion so far and I think this poll is a poor tool for determining consensus. Are we contemplating an RfC with a single proposal and wider participation as the next step? Jojalozzo 05:13, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Works for me. Not sure there's much of an alternative at this point, though I think a "cooling off period" might be a good idea. A lot of tempers have run hot here. Then again, there's that "strike while the iron is hot" canard, too. Maybe it's better to resolve it all at once. I really don't care at this point. It's really a silly matter: What WP:BIRDS is doing has been proven controversial, beyond any shadow of doubt. It's routine for MOS and its subpages to note when something in it is subject to controversy or lack of consensus (for us to not do so would be for us to take on the role of ArbCom and act as arbiters of an ongoing dispute, and that would be a policy violation). How there can rationally even be a debate about the we must say that what WP:BIRDS is doing is controversial (or has lack of consensus), or not mention their "exception" at all, is beyond me. Oh, yeah! I forgot. It's not a rational debate, it's an sudden influx of people from one project who were whipped into an angry frenzy by blatant canvassing that used loaded, emotive wording and false information to turn a calm discussion into a battleground with the specific intent of derailing a simple poll about which phrase to use to annotate the simple fact that a dispute actually exists. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 05:59, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Alternative poll

In order to mitigate the heavy-handed approach of SMcCandlish who provided only two equality bad options to choose from, here is an alternative:

• Common (vernacular) names are given in lower case, except where proper names appear (zebras, mountain maple, but Przewalski's horse). As an exception to this general rule, WikiProject Birds capitalizes the official common names of bird species (Bald Eagle) in ornithological articles following the convention in the field. Use a consistent style for common names within an article. Create redirects from alternative capitalization forms of article titles.

This version says it all WITHOUT the jab at at the wikiproject bird editors. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 19:05, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. This makes it look like the MoS endorses this local consensus when it does not. How about "The MoS acknowledges but does not endorse the local consensus on WikiProject Birds, in which the official common names of bird species are capitalized (Bald Eagle) following the convention of specialist publications. Within WP:BIRDS, do not convert capital letters to lowercase without first establishing consensus. Use a consistent style for common names within any article..."Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:28, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

  Again, MoS should be descriptive, not codify the unhappiness of a few editors. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 23:08, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

TLDR. I agree that making a style manual specifically mention the case of bird names is beyond its scope. There are exceptions that have been agreed to in a larger measure - as for example in Wikipedia:ASTRONOMY (see Delta Scuti variable, Kreutz Sungrazers) and there must surely be a few astronomy publications that follow their own style but that does necessarily make it controversial or suchlike. What could be controversial are, however, species boundaries, but that too is beyond the scope of WP:MOS. Shyamal (talk) 06:51, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppoose both, and this is pointless. Kim, there is already a clear consensus for every single point enumerated in the "points to cover" box, above. Your obstructive disbelief in this isn't going to change it. "Consensus on Wikipedia does not mean unanimity." Everyone knows you want MOS to recognize the WP:BIRDS practice as legitimate, but it's not happening. MOS decided against doing so in 2008, absolutely nothing has changed about that since that, and the community had even earlier decided against doing so, more than once, at WP:VPP among other venues. While consensus can change, the debate above the poll very clearly indicates that it has not. The actual proposal's wording (in both versions) doesn't "jab at" bird editors, it states the truth: Your project insists on an exception, and there is controversy about it. MOS is not going to blatantly lie for you. Now, for the third time, please stop resorting to violence imagery; it's a blatant appeal to emotion fallacy. Your repeated implications that everyone who disagrees with you is violently inclined and attacking you out of malice is getting downright incivil. Back to the tpoic your alternative wording, even if it reflected anything close to MOS and community consensus, would be an unmitigated disaster, since it would signal every single special interest in the world that they should ignore the MOS on any point, great or small, that doesn't perfectly match whatever their own internal, specialist publications do or allegedly do. Think hard on what that means.

  Darkfrog24: No one one is going around converting bird names to lower case, and if they were, that would be further indication that the practice is controversial; it would be a matter to bring up in an RfC or some other centralized discussion. When it happens here and there, it's a matter for case-by-case discussion on those articles' talk pages. If this is happening a lot, it would again suggest controversy and an broader RfC. MOS is not a form of arbitration or other argument-settling process. Next, WP:BIRDS isn't a container, so articles aren't "within" it. Projects do not own articles and MOS cannot tell people not to edit articles this way or that way on the basis that they "belong to" or "are within" some project. Remember that the ArbCom has said several times that a WikiProject is not some special authority, it is simply multiple editors agreeing to collaborate on articles, nothing more. No special rights, no walls around content within their scope, no project-specific rules that conflict with general policies and guidelines. Your version would grossly violate several policies. And your version would also directly encourage every special interest in existence to do their own thing.

  — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 03:07, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I am sorry, I have not seen that clear consensus to kick the bird editors in the ass. But maybe you can make an actual tally of the people who have chimed in to show you are right. So, until then, I suggest you stop claiming there is a consensus for what you want. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:12, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

That's because no one proposed any such thing. If you won't respond to the actual arguments being raised in this debate, instead of these pretend ones you can shadow-box against, why you are you bothering to participate? There's been a consensus for over four years. The wording of this page, and the records of the debates here and at WP:VPP and many other places demonstrate this. As for this debate, see above. Just read it. Not one reasoned argument has been offered against the idea that the caps practice is controversial on Wikipedia; you and various other birders (and some folks interested in butterflies, I think) keep saying "it's not controversial in bird literature", and we all already know that. It has nothing to do with the topic at hand. It's like responding to the statement "Rock-n-roll is controversial in Kabul" with "No, it's not! I was just at huge concert in New York City!" PS: This is your fourth warning. If you do not stop using violence as a metaphor in this argument to cast nasty, dark-motive aspersions on editors who disagree with you here, I will feel compelled to report the matter to WP:ANI as obviously intentional disruptive editing and personal attacks. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 03:34, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Alternative poll discussion

KimV, what part of this do you consider to be an insult to WP:Birds editors? Yes, I gather that you think we're calling you stupid, but which words, specifically? Your own example makes it clear that it's not the mention of WP:Birds that's bothering you. Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:35, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

1. The issue is that it is written such that the position of WP:BIRDS is controversial, while the opposite is true. It is the insistence of the general editors that lower caps should be the norm for bird articles that is controversial.
2. MOS should describe what is de facto norm, not codify the unhappiness of a few editors on how things are done somewhere in a land far far away.

-- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 23:05, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I think I see what's going on. Our MoS is not a descriptive document. It's not a linguistics article or a treatise on the English language. It just tells people what to do. Descriptions of the frequency and history of different grammatical practices are, in my opinion, best left to articles (see quotation mark, for example). If it were descriptive, it would have to allow American-style punctuation in articles written in American English (and I for one wish it did). Taking that a step further, it would have to expressly give permission to write "it's" in place of "its" and other common errors.

I am every bit against the addition of whims and pet peeves to this MoS (again, see WP:LQ, a useless peeve if there ever was one). I believe that it should be held to the same standards as regular articles, meaning that there should be a citable, published, reputable source for every rule. The problem in the case of capitalizing bird names is that the general-audience sources say one thing and the bird-specific sources say something else.

You've said that capitalizing common names is not controversial within bird-focused publications and no one here is contesting that. However, it is controversial on Wikipedia. I have zero objection to saying "controversial on Wikipedia" or "controversial within Wikipedia" instead of just "controversial."

From my perspective—which I believe is shared by SmC and the other MoS regulars—we do need to say that the MoS proper does not endorse the common practice on WP:Birds. That's what we're not walking away from the table without. "This is controversial on Wikipedia" is one way to get that message across. Can you suggest another way of saying this that you and other WP:Birds editors would consider fair and accurate? Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:32, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

1. It just tells people what to do. So, please explain to me how saying that it is controversial is actually telling people what to do?
2. It is made and kept controversial by general editors who cannot accept that their pet rule is not supported in the relevant literature for bird articles.
3. Say something like: "Some general editors cannot accept (are uncomfortable with) the capitalization standards as used in the ornithological literature." A controversy starts with the group having the problem. Evolution is not controversial in most of the world, except among orthodox religious people of many flavors. That does not make it a scientific controversy. It makes it a religious controversy. You have to start with the group having the problem. The bird editors have no problems with either the general rule nor the standards as used for bird articles. It is a few style purists that have. So, start with them. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:23, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Kim, neither of the proposed ("controversial" or "does not have Wikipedia-wide consensus") wordings suggests that lower case should be the norm for bird articles. It says that it is the norm generally, and that there is a controversy about whether it should be the norm on Wikipedia [as it is in virtually all non-specialist publications] for birds. This is 100% true and accurate. While there's been plenty of noisy argument about birds (an argument, I remind you, that I asked people not to get into, at the beginning of this), what this debate is about is stopping people from capitalizing "Dromedary Camel" and "Ball Python", and basically punting the birds issue for later resolution (it's been fought over for seven years straight, so I don't see it being resolved any time soon). — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 03:18, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

PS: This "land far far away" stuff is strongly symptomatic of your project's insularity and belief that it owns and controls bird articles. Your project is not its own sovereign entity, some land with a border guard. It's simply some editors talking on a talk page about how to edit articles on a particular topic. You do not have some magical right to tell everyone else how they can edit an article just because it happens to be about a bird species. If you don't believe me, go informally ask any member of ArbCom. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 03:22, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

You trying to punt this issue for later 'resolution' is basically the issue. besides that, you have no consensus for the inclusion of the "it is controversial" statement. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:26, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Kim, I didn't say I was punting it for my later resolution; I'm tired of the issue. What part of this is unclear?:

1. There's a controversy.
2. It's not resolved (by definition, or there wouldn't be a controversy).
3. Time passes, in one direction.
4. If the controversy will be resolved, it will necessarily be resolved later.
5. Ergo, later resolution.

That's all there is to it. Again, MOS is not an arbitration body like ArbCom. MOS is a style guideline. It does not have the authority to say that the controversy is over. PS: If you want it resolved now, go file an ArbCom case seeking a ruling that WP:BIRDS is free to make up its own rules. Good luck. I'll go buy some popcorn; I love disaster movies. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 03:45, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Why are you all making this personal yet again? If you truly accept the ornithological stylistic convention (which again exists outside of Wikipedia and thus out of the grasping fingers of all the wikilawyers here), why include a snide "this is controversial within Wikipedia", as if your opinion matters to outside convention at all? Can you say "mob mentality"? There is no resolution unless ornithological groups change their conventions. Let it go. You are the ones who are on the offensive here. And quite offensive in the other sense at that.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 03:31, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Obsidian, who said they truly accept the orn. stylistic convention? I certainly didn't. No one said Wikipedia MOS position matters outside WP at all. Actually, um, what exactly are you talking about? As has been said about 20 times on this page already, no one, anywhere, ever here said that capitalizing bird names in bird literature is controversial. It is highly, highly controversial on Wikipedia, which is not a specialist bird publication, but a general encyclopedia. Newspapers, magazines, even non-ornithological zoology journals do not follow your convention either. Please read at least some of the debate before popping off with hostile attacks, like calling people who disagree with you a "mob", which has nasty implications whether you mean "rabble" or "criminals". — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 03:45, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

"This is controversial" is another way of saying, "Doing this (or not doing it) can cause fights/don't do this without checking to see if there's consensus for it." It's just saying it in three words instead of twenty.

Kim, your #2 maintains that the ornithologists are right and the generalists are wrong, when the actual case is that the ornithologists agree with each other and with specialist style guides and the generalists agree with each other and with general-audience style guides. Neither party is 100% wrong. We need something neutral, like "this is disputed," or "this is in accordance with specialist but not general guidance."

Obsidian, we're actually toning it down a lot to say "this is controversial on Wikipedia." The truth of the matter is "this is in direct contradiction with guidance from general style guides." Considering that Wikipedia is a general-audience publication, we really should be doing what they say, not what specialist guides say.

As for who's causing the controversy, generalists have a problem with the capital letters and ornitholigsts have a problem with lowercase letters. SmC and I haven't been disputing this with each other. We've been disputing with you guys. If either side gave up and conceded, then there would be no controversy. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:54, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

How do you feel about "Capitalizing the common names of bird species is established practice within WP:BIRDS. This is in accordance with specialist guidance but has been repeatedly disputed on Wikipedia. Do not de-capitalize articles within WP:BIRDS without first establishing consensus. Use lowercase for all articles outside WP:BIRDS" with a wikilink to WP:LOCALCONSENSUS? 1. It acknowledges that you guys aren't pulling the caps out of anyone's you-know-what, 2. acknowledges that the practice does not have MoS-level consensus 3. allows people to draw their own conclusions about who's at fault for the dispute. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:54, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I actually think this is going a long way to solving the issue. If you want, I am definitlky willing to work on this version. Just let me know. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 05:05, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

SMcCandlish: "I certainly didn't." - That's obvious. "popping off which hostile attacks" - speaketh the kettle to the pot with added hysterics. "Mob mentality" = argumentum ad populum. No criminal associations intended. At this point, do you truly think that alienating a highly productive WikiProject allegedly "for the glory of the common folk" is still going to help anyone but your own preference for a "neater" Wikipedia? You forget you are not representing the entirety of Wikipedia. The MOS-people (MOSians? MOSetians? MOSoslavians?) are also still technically just another WikiProject. If you can't find a common ground without having to slip in the last word, just please stop.

Darkfrog, is there any good reason for including "but has been repeatedly disputed on Wikipedia" or 'this is controversial" other than underlining a divisive debate that you guys started in the first place? Think about it, if this is generating that much hostility, why oh why are you still pushing it single-mindedly?-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 04:03, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I've already given it several times. MOS is not WP:ARBCOM, and cannot arbitrate disputes. It cannot decide that capitalizing bird names is okay. Because there is a seven-year-long WP-wide debate about it, with the vast majority saying "no it's not". It is not MOS's job to declare that dispute over in favor of WP:BIRDS. That would not represent consensus and would be a blatant lie. Meanwhile, there is a clear consensus arrived at in many discussions at MOS and at VPP among other places, against capitalization of the common names of species generally, and MOS has said so since 2008 without controversy about this. That is proof positive that it has consensus, since this is one of the most-watched guidelines on the whole system. The issue before us is if WP:BIRDS wants to have their desired and controversial exception mentioned, it has to be mentioned as controversial (in one wording or another), because that's the truth, and MOS is not in a position to lie about it to make one group of editors feel better. The only alternative is to not mention birds at all. The other reason for saying it's controversial is because we need to, to stop the rampant capitalization of animal names all over the place. That's nothing to do with policy conflicts and role limitations, but with MOS doing what it exists for - giving style advice that keeps the encyclopedia encyclopedic and reader- and-editor friendly. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 08:43, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• oppose - It does not indicate the lack of general consensus for capitalizing common names. Jojalozzo 04:13, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The reason to include "this is controversial/disputed/etc." is that it's a warning. It means "THIS CAN CAUSE FIGHTS!! CAPITAL VS. LOWERCASE MIGHT LOOK LIKE NOTHING, BUT PEOPLE REALLY CARE ABOUT IT, SO DON'T JUST GO IN AND CHANGE IT UNLESS YOU WANT AN EDIT WAR." It just knocks it down to three words. I wouldn't object to saying "This has been the subject of repeated edit wars and talk page disputes" if you guys would find that less offensive than "this is controversial."

You've seen that this is generating hostility, Obsidian, so why are you pursuing it so single-mindedly? You and Kim are both saying, "It wouldn't be controversial if you would just give up and do it our way." Well, the same is true of you. How about you suggest some compromise terminology, as SMC and I have done and as KimV has at least attempted? Darkfrog24 (talk) 04:16, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Are you sure that's the reason? SMcCandlish's response is less conciliatory than yours seem to be. How much would it affect anything if it was just removed really? The problem with adding those three words is it has the distinct undertones of "you've won this time, but we'll be back later!". It leaves an open festering wound, so to speak. It's not a warning against changing the cases unilaterally, it's more like an open-ended declaration of a future intent to reopen this again and again.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 05:42, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Again, it cuts both ways: "This is controversial" rather than "the bird guys/grammar guys have caused a controversy" does not favor one side over the other.

To go without saying "this is controversial/disputed/etc." makes it look as though the MoS proper or Wikipedia in general endorses the position of WP:Birds, and neither of those is the case.

"You've won this time but we reserve the right to revisit later" is pretty much what we're going for. The statement is meant to acknowledge the status quo: WP:BIRDS editors are technically violating the MoS but they've been doing it for so long that while it might be best if the articles used lowercase, we'd prefer articles in uppercase that aren't riddled with edit wars than articles in transition that are. Capitalized common names do not have general consensus, so the MoS shouldn't say that they do. What we're trying to do is write something that acknowledges that while preventing overzealous editors from 1. starting fights by removing capital letters from WP:BIRDS or 2. adding them anywhere else.

Would you prefer it if the guideline did not mention WP:BIRDS at all but simply said, "Do not capitalize the common names of species except where proper nouns appear"? Darkfrog24 (talk) 06:08, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Opinion tally

Lets make a tally to see if there is a consensus to include "its controversial" in the first place – KimvdLinde (talk · contribs), 03:49, 6 February 2012‎

Or otherwise indicate lack of site-wide consensus, disagreement, etc., with the WP:BIRDS capitalization practice; don't skew the results by picking a term that a project-member called a "boo word". — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 03:55, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

If you scroll up, you'll see that Sabine supported both/either of SMC's suggestions. Moving the name now. Concur that this poll should include other ways of acknowledging that capital letters lack Wikipedia-wide consensus. Darkfrog24 (talk) 04:01, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

We'd also need to include everyone from the last version of this debate, and the one before that... — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 04:05, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Include

1. User:SMcCandlish
2. User:Darkfrog24
3. User:ErikHaugen
4. User:Jojalozzo [5]
5. User:Sabine's Sunbird
6. User:Peter coxhead [objected to "controversial" but not "does not have Wikipedia-wide consensus"]
7. User:Dicklyon, per his comment below
8. User:JHunterJ [6]

Not include

1. User:KimvdLinde
2. User:Obsidian Soul [7]
3. User:Natureguy1980
4. User:Casliber [8]
5. User:Bermicourt [9]
6. User:Dcoetzee [10]
7. User:The Bushranger
8. User:Kleinzach
9. User:Jimfbleak
10. User:Milkunderwood [11]
11. User:Enric Naval (I added myself)

Discussion

• I object to this false poll; you are effectively voting for people, based on assumptions and inferences. WP process doesn't work that way. And you're not even going about it accurately. For example, Peter coxhead objected to the word "controversial" but not to "does not have consensus". This is pointless anyway, because the fact that there is a controversy is already proven. There is already an actual poll open, where people can post their own comments. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 04:01, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Also, WP:AN/I did find in favor of my claim of WP:CANVASSing. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 17:54, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Really, that's the same thing that Born2cycle did on WP:TITLE that raised such a ruckus. Let people vote for themselves. If we have a real poll, I'll vote to include a bit about it being controversial, as I believe I expressed at some point above. Dicklyon (talk) 04:10, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that this discussion has been stretched out for weeks now, which continued claims of elusive consensus. Most editors just don't respond anymore. And that is a frequent used tactic to force a opinion through. So, I think it is only fair to consider what people have said earlier. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 04:21, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I object to your claim of consensus that the "it is controversial" statement should be included. If you make those claims, the proof is in the pudding as they say. So, either we drop the pretense there is a "consensus" for inclusion, or we try to work it out some way. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 04:14, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Anyway, to claim "consensus", I would say you have to show a solid majority for inclusion. My guess is that you cannot even find 50% or more. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 04:16, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Please stop engaging in WP:IDHT. The consensus has existed for four years. The language proposed here isn't some new thing out of the blue, it's a minor modification that has everything to do with turning down the heat on your project and, more importantly, stopping rampant capitalization of things like "Lion" and "Bottlenose Dolphin". Your behavior, however, is actually making me want to go after the birds capitalization and get rid of it. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 04:49, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, if you have a consensus to add the controversial already four years ago, you should be able to show it with diff's. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 05:05, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

And if you want to be 'vindictive' by going after the BIRD articles, I am glad that you spelled it out publicly. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 05:08, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Read the entire post on this point at WT:BIRDS where I said this originally; I was making an ironic point, after which I immediately conceded that I was actually tired of the debate and more interested in compromise than getting my way. Gosh, that's just so terrible of me. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 08:27, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

• My objections to the wording are not just about the words "consensus" or "controversy". I'm disappointed that however many times I say it, both "sides" seem constantly to assume that capitalization of common names is only about birds, and keep arguing based on this false assumption. I find that lepidoptera articles more consistently use capitals than even bird articles, as I would expect from the sources used. I patrol new plant articles fairly regularly; I haven't counted but there's a fairly even division between the use of lower case and capitals for common names. There's definitely a geographical difference, as I would expect, since this is what the relevant sources do (more lower case use by North American editors, more capitalization by editors from elsewhere, particularly Australia and Europe). It's quite clear to me that both styles will continue to be used, whatever the MOS says and however long people argue here: there is no consensus. We're being distracted from working towards what there is a consensus on, namely that a given article should use a single style. This is what I try to do for new plant articles, respecting the style most used by previous editors, and what I urge others to do. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:36, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Honestly, no one is making that assumption, that I know of.

• The first issue is that, for the good of encyclopedic consistency and not forcing conflicting, changing specialist conventions, the exact applications of which only the specialists understand or care about, on a general editorship and more importantly on a general readership, for whom unusual diversions from grammatical norms can be so jarring and distracting as to make it difficult to even read the article, and even drive them away, MOS recommends lower case for all species names, and has since 2008. (WP:VPP came to the same conclusion in 2007.)
• MOS does so knowing full well that in a few fields, like lepidoptery and sometimes botany, capitalization of species names is common, even a standard in specialist publications, and that some editors who are specialists in those fields would prefer to do what their specialist publications do rather than what general publications do.
• Going with the general not specialist practice is the overwhelming norm at Wikipedia. Many, many specialist publications in many, many fields (maybe even most of them), from marketing to law to tabletop gaming to stamp and coin collecting to military to rock-'n'-roll, capitalize things in their field, in specialist publications, that are important to them, in ways that no general style guide would ever sanction. It's an "insider" thing, differing totally from specialty to specialty. MOS doesn't make exception for any of them, biological or otherwise, because it's not in the interests of Wikipedia as a general audience encyclopedia to do so, for either our readers or our broader editorship (who after all edit bird and butterfly and whatever articles whether they are professional zoologists or members of the relevant projects or not.
• WP:BIRDS as a group (more accurately, it's most vocal and active members; there are dissenters within their ranks, while the vast majority of the project's participants just DGAF and are just here to write articles) has taken a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS stand against MOS, and will not back down. MOS normally would not care, and just ignore them, but they fight about it so much, and so loudly, and have done so for so long as a cohesive unit, that there's a feeling among many participants at WT:MOS that it's more useful to compromise and mollify them to the extent possible within MOS's mandate, and firewall them as an unresolved dispute (which it certainly is) that should not be emulated, than to continue fighting it out with them; the strife isn't worth it (someone[s] surely will anyway, probably at VPP or RfCs or whatever, for years to come). Lepidopterists and the botanists from subfields that favor capitalization generally fall in the DGAF camp on Wikipedia, and they have not self-politicized the issue as projects and risen up en masse in verbal arms against the "capitalization warriors" and made a WP:BATTLEGROUND out of the issue. My personal feeling for a long time is that the WP:BIRDS matter is an obvious ArbCom case, and I thought about filing it myself once upon a time, but am so tired of the debate I'd rather eat my own hands.
• Starting to make a list in MOS of exceptions, for butterflies, if it's a butterfly article, and plants, but only if you're not American, and cetaceans, but only if you subscribe to particular journals, and so on, is effectively saying "there is no rule at all, just go capitalize anything you feel like, and while you're at it ignore the rest of the MOS, too". Saying "there is no consensus at all, and practice simply varies from field to field" is also effectively saying to capitalize anything you feel like and burn the house down. This is one reason why MOS itself cannot care whether this interest group or that uses capitalization in its field-specific publications, cannot endorse a pro-caps position taken by this project or that (the other being that that the practice is hotly controversial on Wikipedia, MOS is not ArbCom, ergo MOS cannot arbitrate that controversy). MOS exists to set a standard, that some people necessarily won't like, for each stylistic issue that people editwar about, so that the editwarring stops or is at least minimized, and so that things are consistent so readers have a good encyclopedic experience. I.e., MOS itself DGAF about your caps. :-)
• "It's quite clear to me that both styles will continue to be used, whatever the MOS says": Sure. WP:IAR exists for a reason. That people in a few cases or fields of interest or time spans or whatever will ignore a rule does not mean there should be no rule. Even with poorly-written caps rules, we've seen that chaos results where ever it can find a foothold; with no strong, default rule on the matter it would be even worse. WP is organizationally (that is, internally) and as a major world-wide resource, long past the point of free-wheeling anarchy. Consistency has become more and more important, as eventualism has gone extinct. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 05:37, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

You've raised an interesting point I'd not thought of, namely that different attitudes to eventualism are relevant to how we think about this issue. Eventualism is certainly not extinct among WP:PLANTS editors (and I suspect not among other ToL projects). The overwhelming majority of plant articles are stubs (see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Plants#Statistics). I once estimated how long it would take to change all these to a higher category at present rates of arrival/departure from this category; it was several hundred years. Our target is at least one article per species; this will take lifetimes, not years. So I don't feel any urgency whatsoever to agree on a style for common names; to me it's simply not of great relevance. What I don't want to do is to alienate editors and drive them away by being over-prescriptive and heavy-handed about their editing styles. Serious new editors are scarce and need to be encouraged. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:01, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

To everyone but specialist editors who are birders/ornithologists, "driv[ing] [new editors] away by being over-prescriptive and heavy-handed about their editing styles" is precisely what WP:BIRDS is doing. They demand that everyone else on the system obey their peculiar typography, imported from specialist publications. It's the most massive WP:OWN problem in the entire community. I haven't seen any "you must edit our way!" pattern like that out of insect or plant projects. They just go about their merry.

Anyway, I didn't mean to imply that all of the viewpoints of eventualism are dead; of course we're all looking to the future not just the present (I hope). But rather that the WikiPhilosophy of eventualism-as-opposed-to-immediatism – the position that what we do and how we do it on Wikipedia right now is of little concern because this is just a rough draft, a laying-the-foundation stage, an alpha test, and we are not really an encyclopedia yet, and thus should not be concerned about reader experience, editorial standards and public perception until much further down the line – is mooted by reality. As a core philosophy, eventualism hasn't been viable since around 2005ish, and was already on its way out. Where we're at right now is that the bulk of the immediatist philosophy is simply reality, and the important suriviving aspects of eventualism moderate its shortsightedness; that entire wikipolitical axis has collapsed to a point, called "what we do these days".

The problem with not agreeing early on a style for common names is that the longer we wait, the harder it is to standardize, because the more articles there are to change, the more entrenched specialists become that their pet style trumps the expectations of a general readership and preferences of a general editorship, and the more specializations demand their own special style. This is what has already been happening. MOS should have standardized this when the guideline first began to evolve, as among its first orders of business. There would be no "I'm going to quit Wikipedia if I can't capitalize [whatever]" histrionics, because it would just be another in-house style, the same way ornithologists do not tell Nature to go screw itself, and sabotage their own careers by turning down an opportunity to publish an orn. paper in that prestigious journal, just because it doesn't honor the orn. capitalization convention (I checked; it doesn't.). Just throwing up our hands and saying, "oh well, too late, let chaos reign" is not a useful response by the community or by anyone. I certainly don't give up that easily. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 15:16, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Just to note (if it's not already clear) that my position is that capitalization of common names has to be treated like WP:ENGVAR, simply because there is at present no achievable consensus. If I thought there were such a consensus, I would support it, either way. But the reality is that there isn't. Therefore I oppose an editor changing a bird article from lower case style to capitals style just as much as I oppose an editor changing the existing common name style in any article. I know that you don't agree with this, so we must agree to differ. Eventualism is relevant here, because there may, eventually, be a genuine consensus. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:56, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

That strikes me as reasoned. But I have a lot of trepidation about trying to generalize the unusual case of ENGVAR to other topics. ENGVAR exists because of, well, basically American imperialism telling everyone else they had to spell American-like, and that was obviously a major site-wide issue that potentially affected every editor, reader and article on the whole system. Whether to capitalize Mountain Oak or Golden Eagle doesn't rise to that level. I am surprised that you would oppose capitalizing of an already lower-case bird article; my perception of your view on the matter was off. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:35, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I seem to be in a very small minority here (perhaps of only one!). But let me stress, if I haven't made it clear, that I'm very much against the idea that WP:BIRDS should be a special case. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:32, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Interruption: please split off the capitalization discussion to a new page

It just took me about a quarter of an hour to preview and save a comment about ellipses (at the bottom of this MoS Talk Page), because of edit conflicts combined with the inordinate length of the capitalization discussion (collapsed boxes still have to load in full, and edit conflicts for some reason mean that you have to load whole pages instead of the section you're editing). The talk page's length is presently over 340,000 bytes. Could someone who's confident of what he or she is doing please split off, title and flag the discussion of capitals onto a separate page, as I once did with Talk:The Bronx/Name. Thanks. —— Shakescene (talk) 12:42, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I think that debate's about to wind itself down anyway. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:29, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Another compromise text: Mention guidance

Write common (vernacular) names in lowercase except where proper names appear (zebras, mountain maple, but Przewalski's horse). Capitalizing the common names of bird species is established practice within Wikiproject Birds (Harpy Eagle). This is in accordance with specialist guidance but has been repeatedly disputed on Wikipedia, where it conflicts with general-audience guidance. Do not de-capitalize ornithology articles within WP:BIRDS without first establishing consensus. Use lowercase for all other articles outside of WP:BIRDS. All articles should be internally consistent with respect to the capitalization of common names (The Golden Eagle preys on Mountain Hare/The golden eagle preys on mountain hare). Create redirects from alternative capitalization forms of article titles.

• Reflects changes made after KimVL and SMC responded.

So it's a bit long but it establishes that 1. the WP:BIRDS editors aren't following their own whims 2. neither are the opponents of capitalization 3. editors should not de-capitalize WP:BIRDS articles just for the heck of it 4. editors should not copy WP:BIRDS style on articles outside of WP:BIRDS 4. the MoS does not expressly endorse capitalization (implied) and 5. it links to WP:LOCALCONSENSUS without banging it over anyone's head.

If need be, we could add "the specialist guidance of ornithological articles and bird books." The only reason I've left it out is length. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:06, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• support. I think this is clear. It describes the conflict in neutral terms and it does not point fingers to which group has it wrong. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 17:44, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

  No problem with fix. I would suggest changing: "All articles should be internally consistent with respect to the capitalization of common names" to All articles should be internally consistent with respect to the capitalization of common bird names". and remove the example. Maountain hare is lowercase, no reason to make that caps.-- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 02:29, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support with minor tweak: It shouldn't say "within" or "outside" WP:BIRDS, which is not a container, and the project does not control the articles anyway as a matter of policy. It should read "Do not de-capitalize common names in ornithology articles without first establishing consensus. Use lower case for other categories of articles." This also clarifies here what WP:BIRDS has said many times, that it does not expect the convention to be followed for mentions of birds outside ornithology articles. With a tweak like that, I'm all thumbs up and everyone can be happy! — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:29, 7 February 2012 (UTC) Post-tweak: Just support! Yay! — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 00:26, 8 February 2012 (UTC) Update: I would continue to support, if the language were removed calling for "Mountain Hare" in ornithology articles; Jojalozzo, below, is correct that we capitalize different things for different reasons, and a strong argument can be made that capitalizing birds but not other animals in birds articles is such a case. I remain neutral on that question. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 15:44, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support. This is absolutely fine. Sabine's Sunbird talk 00:19, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support - although the "internally consistent" part bugs me a bit; "Mountain Hare" wouldn't be used even in ornithological articles. But if that's what it takes I won't whale the deceased equine with the long straight implement. ;) - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 01:33, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per Bushranger the part that says "All articles should be internally consistent with respect to the capitalization of common names (The Golden Eagle preys on Mountain Hare/The golden eagle preys on mountain hare)." This implication that species other than birds might be capitalized is not intended, is it? I'll support if this is fixed. Dicklyon (talk) 01:40, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose - Please replace "All articles should be internally consistent with respect to the capitalization of common names (The Golden Eagle preys on Mountain Hare/The golden eagle preys on mountain hare)" with something like "Capitalize only common names of birds (but not other fauna) in ornithological articles. Do not capitalize common names of birds in non-ornithological articles. (The Golden Eagle preys on the mountain hare/Predators of the mountain hare include the golden eagle.)" [Note: we'll want to repair the Mountain Hare page if we're to use this example.] Jojalozzo 02:51, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Per four years of MOS saying not to capitalize species common names, it should be fixed anyway. :-) — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 15:56, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

So ornithology journals are concerned that people will confuse the white-throated sparrow with any sparrow that has a white throat but not the mountain hare with any hare that lives on a mountain? I've got my qualms about this. Intra-article consistency, unlike caps vs. lowercase, is a central principle of the Wikipedia Manual of Style. Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:39, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

We need to remember that links work. The first time a prey animal like mountain hare gets mentioned, it would be linked, and unless people's brains liquify between paragraphs, they're not suddenly going to interpret a later unlinked mention as "any hare that lives on a mountain". In any cases of possible ambiguity, just rewrite to avoid like we always do: "the mountain hare species". I'm a big fan of consistency within the same article, but Jojalozzo has a point. And it's far more important to stop the disease-like spread of total nonsense capitalization practices like "Lion" and "Pallas's Cat" than to demand that editors of birds articles to capitalize prey animals. Even if we absolutely wanted both, I'd happily sacrifice the latter to get the former, because it's a 1000× more in-your-face problem for the readership that lc mouse names in UC eagle articles. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 15:54, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely. Intra-article consistency should be first principle. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:22, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

So why did MOS long endorse "U.S." even in the same article as "UK" and "PRC"? Sometimes intra-article consistency is less important that editorial peace, and site-wide consistency. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:15, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

We up-case some terms and down-case others for various reasons. Just because we allow up-casing of bird names in an article doesn't mean it's inconsistent if we don't up-case every other common name in the article. Here we're saying "ornithology articles up-case common names of birds", not "ornithology articles up-case common names of all fauna". Within an ornithology article all common names of birds are consistently up-cased and all common names of other fauna are consistently down-cased. Jojalozzo 14:06, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Jojalozzo, you can make a case for it not being bad, but it is quite literally inconsistent. I'm pretty sure that all of us know that the English language isn't always logical, but this shoots down the idea that bird names are capitalized to prevent confusion. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:08, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Jojalozzo, if you saying that it is the case that "Within an ornithology article all common names of birds are consistently up-cased and all common names of other fauna are consistently down-cased" then you're just wrong. This may be true of some articles but not others.

If you are saying that it should be the case then it makes no sense. All arguments in favour of upcasing bird names are equally good arguments for upcasing other kinds of name. Birds are not the only group where there are authoritative lists of capitalized English names; the only thing that is special is that there is a higher degree of internationalization in the case of birds. SMcCandlish would clearly be right to say that WP:LOCALCONSENSUS would apply if WP:BIRDS members were claiming that ornithology articles should be treated quite differently from every other kind of article. (Shock, horror! I just agreed with SMcCandlish!) Peter coxhead (talk) 17:11, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Where are my smelling salts? heh. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 07:11, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support Thanks to Kim and SMc for moving this on Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:15, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose This is another attempt to make WP:BIRDS special; it ignores all the other areas where capitalization of common names is the norm (e.g. lepidoptera) or widespread (e.g. plants). I do not accept that "it conflicts with general-audience guidance". I do not accept that it would be right at present to de-capitalize articles outside the field of ornithology where there are reasons for capitalizing (e.g. Australian plants). I feel very strongly that this is a highly reprehensible attempt at a "fix" which satisfies two interest groups (those who really want all common names to be in lower case and those members of WP:BIRDS who want all bird names in capitals) at the expense of the wider Wikipedia community. If anything is LOCALCONSENSUS this is. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:20, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the idea that MOS itself is becoming a local consensus: Maybe it's just time we set up an RfC here on the species caps issue, and direct WP:CD (via Template:Centralized discussion) and WP:VPP to the RfC when it gets going. That should be more than enough site-wide attention. If not we can even see about adding it for a while to MediaWiki:Watchlist-details and MediaWiki:Sitenotice. Various RfCs and VPP discussions have happened over the years, piecemeal, but the kind broadly-advertised centralized discussion that needs to take place hasn't happened.

On the other bits: Can you cite any general-audience guidance – a style guide, encyclopedia, dictionary, writing textbook, magazine or newspaper stylebook, or other non-specialist (i.e. non-field-specific – not animals- or plants-specific) work – in which it is recommended that bird (or other organism) common names should be capitalized? If there are not a preponderance of such works (there's not; previous debates about this have spent large amounts of time examining this question), then the practice certainly "conflicts with general-audience guidance", and it's crucial that MOS say so, or it will effectively be taking ArbCom's role and arbitrating in favor of WP:BIRDS and telling all critics of the WP:BIRDS capitalization scheme that the debate is over; not MOS's role.

Is there an international body that has published a standardized list of official, consistent-worldwide names of plants or lepidoptera which includes capitalization as a requirement of adherence to the standard? That is the "special" argument WP:BIRDS makes. I do not agree, as many do not agree, that this is a strong enough rationale for MOS to endorse the practice, because it's still geeky, specialist typographic weirdness for specialist publications, but it has been a strong enough rationale to generate 7 years of entrenched, WP:BATTLEGROUNDish debate about bird capitalization, a debate which remains unresolved. Thus MOS would note the dispute, albeit in weaker wording than I originally proposed, and advise editors to work around it until it it someday is resolved. This is actually standard operating procedure for MOS and its subpages. There is no comparable system-wide dispute about moths or ferns.

MOS is a prescriptive document like all style guides, which means picking a choice between one option and another (or several others) and applying it for consistency. This also means that those who prefer the option, or one of the options, not chosen aren't going to be entirely happy with the result, but their happiness is secondary to the good of the encyclopedia, including both a consistent reader experience and reduction of raging editwars between editors. This is all true of everything MOS recommends. MOS isn't saying WP:BIRDS is special, it's saying WP:BIRDS is claiming it is special, there's a debate about that, it's not MOS's job to arbitrate that dispute, but it is MOS's job to set a standard to follow when people fight frequently over a style matter, which is the case with organism caps generally. The MOS standard is "don't capitalize species common names", since virtually zero other general works do so (WP doesn't care if specialist works do), and it MOS has said so since 2008. For four years the "no-caps" default here has been uncontroversial. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 15:44, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I can only repeat that it's not true that "For four years the 'no-caps' default here has been uncontroversial." It hasn't been argued about here, maybe, but it's been argued about elsewhere, and people just didn't bother with what the MOS said until you tried to change subpages as part of "synchronizing". Before that, it was deliberately ignored by many editors – and that's not what "uncontroversial" means. Uncontroversial guidance in the MOS tends to be followed or else failure to follow uncontroversial guidance quickly gets corrected without edit wars. This is not true of the capitalization of English names. If you don't believe me, try "correcting" the capitalization of common names in an article about an Australian plant, like a Banksia (and, no, I'm not recommending this!). Peter coxhead (talk) 17:11, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Let's switch terms, so this stops being about birds or even animals. Let's say WP:STARWARS notes that (I'm making this up), "Planet", "Starship", "Star", and various other terms are almost always capitalized in Star Wars novels and guidebooks and George Lucas's own manuscripts and official statements by LucasArts, etc., etc., but not in normal English. They decide it should be done in Star Wars articles "because that's what the reliable sources do" and change all the relevant articles to do this. Others don't agree with it and point to MoS. WP:STARWARS writes up their own WP:LOCALCONSENSUS guideline, and deliberately ignores MOS rather than seek consensus that what the project is doing makes sense in a general-purpose encyclopedia. That's what I see happening, if you just change the topic back. Refusing to participate in consensus-forming process at MOS doesn't mean that MOS hasn't come to a consensus and that said consensus represents a WP-wide view. Claiming that something at MOS is controversial but doing nothing to change it indicates an illusory "controversy". But WP:IAR exists for a reason. The fact that some editors, including groups of them in projects, sometimes ignore MOS and other "rules" doesn't mean that the rule doesn't exist or is bad, only that some people feel a need to ignore it. Policy sanctions this, and life goes on. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 19:25, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

The other other solution

Peter coxhead noticed and seemed to like this, but I think everyone else missed it in the shuffle. An archive page back, I proposed an obvious win-win solution, that works on pages of all kinds, biological and otherwise. It is the normal WP practice of listing alternative names and their sources. See, e.g., heroin, which lists the "official" name diacetylmorphine and its source, as well as the name in British medicine, diamorphine, and a source for that, while keeping the article at the common, plain-English name. WP:COMMONNAME has barely been mentioned in this entire debate, but is actually important here, since it's already been proven, in many former editions of his debate, that capitalization of common names of species of anything is virtually unknown outside of specialist sources, and thus is not common, by definition. The proposed solution would also solve the lepidoptery and regional botany caps questions, too.

The proposal

MOS would not state any alleged exception, disputed or otherwise, for birds (or anything else), just use lower case, because this is what virtually all reliable generalist sources do. We'd follow MOS in title and in prose in bird articles, like we do for every other kind of article, but give any reliably sourced capitalized form and its source as an alternative, among others, if any, just like we would for any other kind of article.

Typical (but fictitious) examples (added to avoid any confusion that a "list of alternative capitalizations" is the idea):

The frumious bandersnatch (Banderesnatium frumiosus) is a bandersnatch of the Jabberwocky family, native to the forests of Serendip. In cryptozoological literature, especially of the International Society of Cryptozoology,^[1] it is often capitalized Frumious Bandersnatch.

and

The red-faced warbler (Scientificus nameus), also known as the crimson-faced warbler^[1] in some areas, is a whatever of the Whichever family. The official International Ornithological Congress name for the species is Red-faced Warbler.^[2] Its range extends from ... blah blah blah. The red-faced warbler's primary habitat is blah blah blah.

(Note lower case in that last sentence). This exact solution has worked perfectly well in other articles of all kinds, with nearly zero strife.

For birds, it also has the WP:NPOV benefit of not preferring one ornithological organization's capitalization scheme over another's, when they conflict. (Yes, most readers here are probably unaware of it, but the ornithological authorities do not actually even entirely agree on how to capitalize!)

Unusual bird example:

The red-faced warbler (Scientificus nameus), also known as the crimson-faced warbler^[1] in some areas, is a whatever of the Whichever family. The official International Ornithological Congress name for the species is Red-faced Warbler,^[3] while the American Ornithologists' Union prefers the variant Red-Faced Warbler.^[4] Its range extends from ... blah blah blah. The red-faced warbler's primary habitat is blah blah blah.

— SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:08, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support, as nominator: I firmly predict that an RfC will arrive at precisely this solution, since it's completely normal practice to note alternative spellings and their sources instead of fighting over the matter for 7 years straight. (Just or the record, my proposing this as a potential solution does not strike my support of the one immediately above as a possibility if consensus leans in that direction, but this proposal is my actual strong preference.) — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:08, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Clarification: I'm trying to think outside the us vs. them box. Instead of saying "Dammit, WP:BIRDS, stop this capitalization stuff, it's ungrammatical", we can just use and source the capitalization, including the variations (and there are variations – the issue has come up at WT:BIRDS several times) as alt. names in the lead. No policy needs to change, no guideline needs to change, WP:BIRDS gets to keep and improve the information for the readers about the fact that the common names are capitalized in the bird lit. Basically nothing changes other than over-capitalization in the titles and article prose is slowly massaged away as people bother to get around to it. The "win-win" isn't "WP:BIRDS and 'capitalization warriors'", illusory camps that would no longer be relevant. The winners would be readers, who would get better information and also not have a convention thrown in their faces, sentence after sentence, that will confuse and irritate many of them, and editors, who will finally have consistent guidance to follow and an end to seven years of telling each other in faintly politer terms to go screw themselves. The more entrenched members of the birds project will still hate this idea, because it means giving up capitalization in titles and most of the prose, but the rationales for going this route are solidly based in policy, and I'd bet if you could get them to speak up on it, many members (there are over 100, and we usually hear from 4-8 of them) a large number would agree this makes sense and, for their project be a great burden of distracting and stressful strife off their shoulders. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 22:26, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Both "sides" make comments about what is confusing to readers, but do we have any evidence on this? Not that I've seen. I think that lower-casing English names is sometimes (but far from always) more confusing to readers; SMcCandlish thinks that capitalizing English names is (?always) confusing to readers. (What irritates either of us is irrelevant, although doubtless irritation helps to motivate us both to discuss it!) Does it really confuse readers of this Canadian web page to see "Long-tailed Vole" instead of "long-tailed vole"? I doubt it, but I would certainly be persuaded by solid evidence. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:25, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

The various threads, at WT:BIRDS and elsewhere, that in one exact wording or another, ask "why on earth are you capitalizing this?" are a strong indication that it's confusing, otherwise the question would never need to be asked. But confusion is only part of the issue. Outright irritation (i.e. distraction of the reader from their use of the encyclopedia) is a major part. If it weren't either confusing, annoying or both to a large number of readers, it would not have become a seven year protracted debate of nearly everyone who has expressed an opinion on the matter being against the capitalization except one project, even in biology (save a few ichthyologists and botanists, whose projects don't really seem to care). All the other projects like WP:CETACEANS that experimented with capitalization, because some of their sources used it, abandoned it pretty rapidly, because they saw the ill will that it generated from the readership and less importantly from the broader editorship. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• OPPOSE For all the above mentioned reasons. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 21:10, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Such as? Several archives of text is WP:TLDR to know what specific objections you may be raising. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:16, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Stop playing games. You are not new to the discussion and you know the arguments. It is a win-LOOSE solution!-- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 21:21, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm playing no games. You raise a large number of invalid arguments at every turn. I'm asking you to provide one or two clear, reasoned ones that have not already been addressed as fallacious. Your "oppose" doesn't really mean anything if you don't. Let's make it easy: On what basis do you object to the idea that it is typical Wikipedia practice to name articles according to WP:COMMONNAME? On what basis do you object to the idea that it is normal Wikipedia practice to list sourced alternative names in the WP:LEAD of the article? On what basis do you object to the idea that it is normal WP practice to cite reliable sources for facts, such as alt. names? On what basis do you object to the idea that it is normal WP practice to represent conflicting views found in reliable sources instead of favoring one, such as favoring a particular capitalization scheme by one taxonomic authority that is disputed by another? I'm really interested what your rationales could be. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:30, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

<sigh> Kim claims to have left Wikipedia again, as she did before on 13 October 2011 (click redlink for deletion history) and again on 17 January 2012. Sad if true, and I hope she comes back; I don't have to agree with someone or their debate tactics to appreciate the good article work they do. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 19:06, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support as it conforms to the policy of practical consensus - it's what we do everywhere else. I think this one has the best chance in an RfC. I'd like to see proposed wording. Jojalozzo 21:38, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Something like:

Common (vernacular) names are given in lower case, except where proper names appear (zebras, mountain maple, gray wolf, but Przewalski's horse). Reliably sourced, alternative capitalization forms should be mentioned in the introductionlead section.

? Jojalozzo 15:30, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Sure. I'd probably go with "in the lead section", though. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:45, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• Provisional support. For article content, I think it is the best balance of full use of reliable sources and adherence to generalist styles, and I have long been a proponent of a more general solution to providing and referencing multiple common names. My concern is with the article title. If we are maintaining the capitalization of the reliable sources, that capitalization should also be preserved in the article title. And since most bird articles are titled with names that are capitalized in authoritative sources, it seems to me that we should preserve that.--Curtis Clark (talk) 02:43, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose for the lead, but is good to clarify what is called what in taxonomy/naming sections. The version above looks really really user unfriendly. We sometimes distinguish if a common name diverges from an official name, however in all bird cases, an abbreviated common name is ambiguous, so I suspect there is no situation where there is an unambiguous and hence exact common name which diverges from the official name - actually my mistake, there is precisely one species - Great Northern Loon, whose official name is an unholy amalgam of British and US preferences....so there is one species this is a good option for but not the other 9000 +. It also goes contra to pages such as Myocardial infarction Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:36, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. For one reason, I don't see any reason to list variant capitalizations. Readers may need to know that their "turkey buzzard" is our "Turkey Vulture", or even that their (and my) "Gunnison Sage-Grouse" is our "Gunnison Grouse", and we should give sources for such things, but readers don't need to be told that "marsh warbler" is the same as "Marsh Warbler" (when the former refers to a distinct species). The other reason(s) will have to wait till I'm awake tomorrow. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 06:12, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

It's not really a matter of creating a "list" of variant capitalizations (just mentioning both variants in the rare cases this is needed) – I've clarified to the wording of the example text – but rather informing the reader encyclopedically that while we don't capitalize nouns like this in general English writing, some organizations do so in some contexts, in which it should not be interpreted as "wrong". This is what the reason for the wording was at the revised domestic short-haired cat, where it gives the "Domestic Shorthair" pseudo-breed name that some of the cat fancier organizations use exclusively, and this forestalls any further edit-warring and article-title-warring. Successfully. We have to remember that even though you edit a lot of bird articles and I edit a lot of cat articles, the average user may come and read one of them, and will never know there is even an organization much less one with a convention, and so on, unless the article tells them this. Links are cheap. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Factual nitpick (is this where these go?): The IOC and the AOU both capitalize as Red-faced Warbler. There may be some names in which they capitalize the second element of a hyphenated compound differently, but I don't know what. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 06:21, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

There are, and I don't know what either. It's geeky detailia that's been the subject of plenty of discussion, multiple times, at WT:BIRDS. I wasn't intending to imply that every single example of "foo-bar baz" is written "Foo-bar Baz" by one org, but "Foo-Bar Baz" by another, just that there are cases where this is true, following some nerdy rule that evidently even the project members have a hard time following. It's also evidentiary that the notion that the "there's one birds standard and everyone in the world follows it exactly, and Wikipedians who oppose using it here are ignorant, meddling assholes" message continually projected by certain members of the WP:BIRDS project is fallacious and they know it. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• Provisional support. Firstly I applaud all genuine attempts to reach a compromise on this issue, which this is. I agree with Curtis Clark's position. All common names should be sourced; where there are reliable sources of common names which capitalize this should be reported, regardless of the kind of organism. If a consensus could be reached on this proposal, I would then be willing to support lower-case in the text. However, the article title should be based on a very reliable source (to ensure it is as stable as possible). The capitalization of this source should be preserved in the title – redirects will take care of alternatives. Unfortunately it looks as though we shall reach the same conclusion as before: there simply is no consensus at present for a single agreed style on the capitalization of common names, either in titles or in text, nor for any compromise between these styles. I regret this, but there's no point in pretending otherwise. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:11, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

It's gaining enough complete and partial support from both random passers-by and previous debate participants, despite the canvassing that brought a pile of WP:BIRDS editors to this page to stack the polls, that I have little doubt it would find broad consensus in a site-wide RfC promoted via WP:CD and the Pump. Someone else should file that one; I've been attacked so many times on a personal level over this issue that noise-makers would simply use the fact that I started the RfC as a distraction point. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• Support. Acknowledging specialist practice in the lead while using general English in the title and text would be best. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:03, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose—This is too much. Putting different names in the lede is one thing, but lists of capitalization variants is excessive. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:08, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

That's not the point at all; there would only be one (and only where the term is capitalized by some major reliable source, like a taxonomic authority), except in the apparently rare case where the major authorities disagree on the details. There would never be a "list". I updated the example text to demonstrate. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:45, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Input requested at WP:AT on common names

FYI

 – Pointer to a discussion on another page that may interest editors here.

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles#Common_names. I'd appreciate opinions about making the policy fit for purpose so we can resolve problems like this more easily. --Kleinzach 01:26, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm looking hard, but I'm not seeing anything all that relevant over there. The ongoing noteworthy debates at WT:AT are about "common names" in the sense of "heroin" vs. "diacetylmorphine", and how much "familiarity" is required and how broadly for a name to be considered "common". There is no debate ongoing here about article title/naming conventions issues, like whether the common names of organisms (what a lot of us have been talking about lately) really are their common names, nor whether organism articles should categorically be at the common names vs. the scientific binominals (another perennial fight in some quarters, with reasons that aren't always obvious to the uninitiated, especially in botany). This is about capitalization of the common names of organisms, and it is a style matter, not an AT/NC matter. I can't find anything recent at WP:AT about this. Is there something in particular you think is MOS-related that we need to see at WT:AT#Common names? — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 12:31, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:MOSCAPS disagreement with WP:MOS

FYI

 – Pointer to a relevant discussion on a sub-page.

The issue has come up at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters that the some editors at that page feel that it is a wholly separate guideline which can make its own consensus to ignore MOS's current wording. I've tried to synchronize that page with this one's current wording (the sub-guideline is about four years out of date, and says many things MOS does not sanction), but been reverted, even after ensuring that anything subject to the capitalization controversy debate on this page was commented out. I posted a full justification, change by change, for every proposed alteration but also self-reverted for discussion. So the text there is currently as it was before I attempted any changes. More input there would be useful, and the discussion raises some interesting issues about "sub-guideline sovereignty" on WP:CONSENSUS matters. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 04:17, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

It's too compilcated to follow. When I look at your numbered list at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#The_changes.2C_enumerated.2C_so_that_discussion_of_each_can_happen_instead_of_mass_reversion, and start checking, it seems that you have gotten the first couple of items done. Where are things sticking? Let's slow down, take them one at a time, and maybe others will be able to afford enough attention to chime in. Dicklyon (talk) 04:51, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Not intending to generate a new discussion here about the details of what's happening there, just drawing attention to the discussion there because hardly anyone pays any attention to that sub-guideline's talk page. That said, none of the items I enumerated there has been done. I provided diffs for each, so you can see that the changes made are not in the extant wording of the page. I was blanket-reverted on every single change, even typo fixes. Actually, the wider issue of whether this guideline's sub-pages are in a position to go their own way is worth discussion more generally. Maybe I'll start a thread on that. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 06:46, 10 February 2012 (UTC)