Talk:Second Thoughts Are Best

A fact from Second Thoughts Are Best appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 19 November 2015 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Second Thoughts are Best is a 1729 pamphlet about the increase of criminality rate in London, written by Daniel Defoe under the pseudonym of Andrew Moreton?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2015/November. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Second Thoughts are Best.

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This is a new article that I am starting as an assessment for my university class in History of English culture, 18th century studies. I am going to develop my article in 4 sections: the night watch (current state and Defoe proposal), reforming society (reformation of manners, prostitutes, soldiers vagrants and beggars), reforming places (lightning, the problem of Geneva shop and night houses, securing alley and lanes), and reforming theater (the “bad” example of the beggars opera mostly). My provisional bibliography contains: Tobias J.J., Crime and Police in England: 1700–1900, Dublin Gill: Macmillan, 1979 Beattie J.M., Policing and punishment in London 1660–1750, Urban Crimes and the Limits of Terror, Oxford, 2001 Backscheider P.R., Daniel Defoe: His Life, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1989 Novak M. E., Daniel Defoe, Masters of Fiction: His Life and Ideas, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001 Hitchcock T. and Shoemaker R., Tales from the Hanging Court, London: Bloomsbury, 2006. Feel free to suggest readings! Also you can contact me on my talk page to discuss about the article. --Irene1209 (talk) 16:26, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 19 November 2015

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 14:46, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Second Thoughts are Best → Second Thoughts Are Best – "Are" should be uppercased. No further details needed. George Ho (talk) 06:15, 19 November 2015 (UTC) --Relisted. Natg 19 (talk) 07:45, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Unimportant word. Capitalisation creates emphasis not consistent with the meaning. Capitalisation would be inconsistent with sources Reject the MOSCT on this word as a random rule made up long ago by someone forgotten and carried into the guideline without thought or discussion. "Is" and "are" are frequently very dissimilar to other verbs, frequently unimportant like all other verbs usually are. the MOSCT is doing a disservice by oversimplification. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:18, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

How should it be different from A Boy Was Born, SmokeyJoe? George Ho (talk) 17:07, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That one is wrong too. As per the large amounts said there. Forms of "to be" are being mistaken for verbs when they are not. See Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters/Archive_13#Capitalization_of_Copula_.28linguistics.29. The real distinguishing line is the importance of the word. In this case, the word is not important. Skip the word and see if it changes the meaning. It is just a filler. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:57, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support. MOS:CT is clear; among the words to be capitalized in titles are "every verb, including forms of to be". (Full disclosure: I was brought here by a [neutral] notification left by George Ho on my talk page.) Deor (talk) 19:59, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support. See also The Way We Were, The Way I See It inter alia. Brianboulton (talk) 21:49, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

In the case of The Way We Were, "were" is clearly an important word and should be capitalized for that reason. The second example doesn't relate to the case being discussed. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:57, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support. As far as articles dealing with modern-day topics are concerned (such as moving This is Tom Jones to This Is Tom Jones, or This is Alice to This Is Alice), these can be performed, per MOS:CT, without even a discussion. The "grandfathered" topics which date back to the centuries before the establishment of orthography guidelines should have at least an airing of this issue so that future users of Wikipedia in the years and decades ahead can refer to the historical record. Having said that, the discussion at the page (Talk:A Boy Was Born) referenced above by George Ho has been so extensive [between December 2013 and December 2014 we can consult 1. Requested move, 2. "A Boy was Born" vs "A Boy Was Born" in the text, 3. Should the lead sentence include the phrase "(correctly titled A Boy was Born)"?, 4. Who owns this article?, 5. Remove "published as" part? and 6. A Boy was Born (Was)] that virtually everything has been said on this subject from every possible viewpoint. The consensus (such as it was [and is]) has deferred to MOS:CT as the basic guideline (with no historical exceptions). —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 23:09, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Support' per MOS. Montanabw ^(talk) 10:51, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page.