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Capitalization discussions ongoing (keep at top of talk page)

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

Current

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(newest on top) Move requests:

Other discussions:

Pretty stale but not "concluded":

Concluded

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Extended content
2023
2022
2021

Does RS or MOSCAPS decides proper names?

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I have been having a debate with Tony1 on whether List of tornado outbreaks by Outbreak Intensity Score should be "List of tornado outbreaks by Outbreak Intensity Score" or "List of tornado outbreaks by outbreak intensity score". The question comes down bluntly to whether MOS (which is Tony1's argument) says proper names in the title cannot be capitalized, or if RS, which capitalized things, is more important for the capitalization in a title. Tony1 has also switched "Super Outbreaks" to "Super outbreaks" in the article subheadings, despite academically published papers capitalizing "Super Outbreak". So, which is more important for article titles/article subheadings? MOS or RS? The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 00:17, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Noting this discussion was opened after Tony1 accused me of "vandalism" for reverting on grounds that RS capitalize things. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 00:18, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm always a bit confused by the "proper names" argument: there are plenty of proper names in English that are rendered in lowercase, unless the only qualification for a name being proper is that it's capitalized, which is adorably circular. Remsense诉 00:22, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well honestly it needs to be sorted out for scales like this. Several science-scales in the weather-world are currently capitalized: International Fujita scale, Enhanced Fujita scale, Saffir–Simpson scale, Miller Classification, Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale, Sperry–Piltz Ice Accumulation Index. The main argument presented by Tony1, in short, states that all of these need to be decapitalized. My argument was due to RS capitalization. So even though it seems like a hot-headed style discussion opening, it honestly does need to be solved. RS or MOS/grammar for capitalization of scientific things. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 00:26, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The capitalization of Fujita, Saffir–Simpson, Miller, and Sperry–Piltz are on account of those being names of people. I'd question that "Ice Accumulation Index", but it does seem to be always capped in sources, even though it's a descriptive term, so I won't mess with it. Dicklyon (talk) 02:24, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I downcased the article name from List of tornado outbreaks by Outbreak Intensity Score to List of tornado outbreaks by outbreak intensity score, and have been twice reverted. There seems to be confusion about what a proper name is, perhaps muddied by the practice of using title case to expand acronyms (OIS), which MOS prohibits.

At the talkpage the editor strangely likens his upcasing to "Enhanced Fujita scale (an article that s/he started, excuse me), arguing that I would say it should be "Enhanced fujita scale" (i.e. not capitalized the proper name)", and that "Enhanced Fujita" is itself a proper name. But the editor still wants "Score" in List of tornado outbreaks by Outbreak Intensity Score.

As well the editor upcases main-text titles despite their being plural, which sits oddly with his claim that they are proper names.

I withdraw the claim of vandalism, given WeatherWriter's claimed reason.

Tony (talk) 00:41, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just want to know that Thomas P. Grazulis the creator of OIS actually capitalized all three words. "Score" is part of the name, similar to how "Index" is part of the Sperry–Piltz Ice Accumulation Index. "scale" in Enhanced Fujita scale is lowercase in all usages of it. But in this circumstance, "Score" is part of the term. Basically, "Outbreak Intensity" is a different term (actually created by the Storm Prediction Center) while "Outbreak Intensity Score" was created by Thomas P. Grazulis last year. Hopefully that helps explain it. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 00:49, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WeatherWriter, the MOS says how to decide, but doesn't decide itself. In fact, it refers to reliable sources. If you read the lead of MOS:CAPS, you'll see the general principle, "Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia." Looking at the article, I see that the term was made up in late 2023, so there are not many independent sources yet. We don't generally pay much attention to the capitalization of a writer who makes up a descriptive term and presents it with capital letters – what matters is whether independent sources cap it. I did find this Tornado Project Online page that uses lowercase except where defining the acronym. The term is clearly descriptive, sort of like volcanic explosivity index and lots of other such things. I'll look into the others; e.g. Miller classification sure seems like it's over-capitalized. Dicklyon (talk) 01:48, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I see that site I linked with lowercase is also not independent, as it seems to be run by the creator/author of the OIS. So he doesn't even cap it consistently himself. I guess the question is then whether this new scale is even notable yet. Dicklyon (talk) 16:38, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I fixed Northeast snowfall impact scale and Miller classification, as independent sources don't mostly cap those. If anyone objects, we can have an RM discussion. WeatherWriter, if you still object to the fix tony1 did, we can do an RM on that, too. If you don't object, go ahead and fix it again, please. Dicklyon (talk) 02:20, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Issue solved. The article title itself was moved to lowercase (List of tornado outbreaks by outbreak intensity score). RS and academic usage does seem to support the outbreak terms, i.e. “Super Outbreak”, is capitalized, so the subheadings will remain capitalized. But, I will not fight or debate the article title being “ List of tornado outbreaks by “Outbreak Intensity Score”, since the creator is the one who capitalized it and the other source did not. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 05:57, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Also note that terms like "super outbreak" have been in use for decades and are not proper nouns. The fact that Grazulis adopted them as category names in the OIS doesn't mean we need to capitalize them. I fixed those headings. Dicklyon (talk) 17:06, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It looks like the issue has now been solved. The subheadings have all be decapitalized. I did recapitalize the individual super outbreak articles (1974 Super Outbreak and 2011 Super Outbreak) since those names are actually capitalized by majority of sources including official government reports and media reports ([1][2]). But nonetheless, the problem is fully solved. MOS overall trumps RS in usage, especially if the creator of a name is involved. Thanks y'all! The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:56, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not a majority vote, though, and it doesn't seem to make much sense to treat some super outbreaks different from all others. Gawaon (talk) 18:16, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    If they aren't treated differently, then the original question is automatically solved: MOS trumps RS usage. If we treat them differently, then RS usages trumps MOS. That is the whole question and reason this discussion really started in the first place. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:44, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed it is not a majority vote; we do not capitalize something unless the vast majority of the independent sources do for something in particular, which doesn't seem to be the case here. A simple majority is insufficient (and trying to determine one is extremely easy to fake/manipulate through cherrypicking). Capitalizing one thing out of class of things just because a slight majority of sources that one has selected seem to do it is a terrible idea. It's grossly inconsistent (and a PoV-laden problem of promotionalism toward a particular sub-topic and often non-indendent sources that write about it), seemingly out of an "I will do everything in my power to keep some vestige of over-capitalization in my pet topic" angle, which is unconstructive. WP's default is always lower-case, unless and until usage for a particular instance is demonstrably proven to be "capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources", and even then we are not utterly bound to do it, since WP:CONSISTENT is policy. People really need to stop approaching this kind of question like some sort of suicide pact. Just apply common sense, in a direciton which results in what is most not least consistent with the rest of the material, and move on to something more productive than trying to get "S" where "s" will do perfectly fine. Please.

    PS: See also MOS:DOCTCAPS: WP does not capitalize the name of methods, systems, classifications, theories, scales, approaches, schools of thought, practices, processes, procedures, doctrines, etc., etc., or parts thereof at all, so this question did not need to arise in the first place. The rare exceptions (e.g. geological/biological and athropological eras like Jurassic and Neolithic) are capitalized because and only because they are near-universally capitalized in reliable source material. It never, ever has anything to do with someone's arguments that something "really" "is" a "proper name" (for why this is a pointless waste of time here, and in general since even specialists for over two centuries now cannot agree on what that means, see WP:PNPN).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:56, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I had changed a couple of headings but didn't move the corresponding articles 2011 Super Outbreak and 1974 Super Outbreak, as I think those are capitalized enough in sources to be controversial, but yes they are sometimes lowercase and not really proper names. I'm going to leave them alone for now, but I'll support lowercase if someone wants to work on that. Dicklyon (talk) 01:30, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • This was kind of a strange question, since the lead of MOS:CAPS says to only capitalize that which is capitalized in a substantial majority of independent reliable sources, so the answer to the "Does RS or MOSCAPS decides proper names?" question is, well, "yes". There is no either/or conflict here.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:25, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • This must always be RS, not MOS. We're a factual encyclopedia, not a Live, Laugh, Love sign. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:53, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The MOS says to consult RSs, as already pointed out, so there's no this-or-that question here. Dicklyon (talk) 04:40, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Example in MOS:RACECAPS section?

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More than a month ago, King of Hearts noticed and removed an insertion in the MOS:RACECAPS section that had apparently been added there after a discussion that failed to achieve consensus. The original form of the example was: Asian–Pacific, Black, Hispanic, Native American, and White demographic categories. The insertion added the word "Indigenous" with the note "For more on Native American, First Nations and Indigenous naming conventions see MOS:CITIZEN and WP:TRIBE" after "Native American". Since then there has been a slow edit war on whether or not to keep that insertion. So let's resolve it here.

Personally I think the example is better without the insertion, for three reasons:

  1. An example is an odd place for an explanatory note – if we want such a note, it should be placed in the text, not in the middle of an example.
  2. For an example (supposedly meant to indicate survey results or something?), the combination of "Native American, Indigenous" as two different categories doesn't seem to make much sense. Of course, not all Indigenous people are Native Americans, but surely to make the example meaningful one would expect some kind of qualifier (indigenous of where?) to contrast the term with the five other categories used.
  3. In combination with the text just before the example, the insertion sneakily seems to suggest that "Indigenous" belongs to the category "other upper-case terms of this sort", while WP:INDIGENOUS makes it clear that there is actually no consensus on whether or not to capitalize it, so logically it falls rather in the same category as "Black" and "White", for which there exists no consensus for wiki-wide capitalization either.

So I'm in favour of removing the insertion. If desired, the optional capitalization of "indigenous/Indigenous" could instead be mentioned in a more explicit fashion, creating less risk of confusion. What do others think? @King of Hearts, Oncamera, Pinchme123, and Randy Kryn. Gawaon (talk) 19:51, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Adding participants from the original discussion (who have not already been pinged): @CorbieVreccan, ARoseWolf, Yuchitown, Cinderella157, Jayron32, SMcCandlish, David Eppstein, GoodDay, Fyunck(click), and Dicklyon: King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:41, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I Strongly oppose removal. The initial removal that started this slow-burn edit war was done without discussion, against standing implicit consensus over 1.5 years of stability. At the time the language was inserted, it was done only after a discussion about the inclusion of the language (where most of the objection was raised only after initial consensus, after the language was added, and did not end in removing the then-new addition). Finally, this removal was apparently done during a then-ongoing Move Request.
At what point do we as editors acknowledge that such a long time for something to be stable, after initial discussion about inclusion and no post-discussion removal, is simply emblematic of its implicit consensus? I'd say well more than a year is plenty long enough. I also 1) disagree that the mid-sentence note is distracting; and 2) disagree that having both "Native American" and "Indigenous" as examples doesn't make much sense. "Indigenous" is a distinct marker of identity from Native American, used globally, and as such should not be excluded due to some USA or North American bias. The note leads to pages that explain this.
--Pinchme123 (talk) 20:40, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I forgot to also note, the language at WP:INDIGENOUS was once in agreement with the note here, before it was also changed on the same day as this page. And again, this was done during the aforementioned Move Request. --Pinchme123 (talk) 21:16, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WP:EDITCON applies only to self-contained and/or descriptive changes, not prescriptive changes. So for example, if someone edits an article and the edit stays for years, then it could be said to have implicit consensus. Likewise, if a guideline is edited to merely improve how well it describes existing practice, then it can stay if nobody objects. However, there is no statute of limitation to prescriptive policy/guideline changes, as they dictate how other pages should be edited in the future. While editors of an individual article could be said to implicitly consent to its current state by not raising objections in a timely manner, they cannot be expected to track changes to all policies and guidelines that could affect the article in question, so they cannot be said to have implicitly consented to any policy/guideline changes. Therefore, a controversial policy/guideline change made without the blessing of explicit consensus may be reverted at any time. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:45, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This explanation ignores two things. First, WP:EDITCON isn't standing alone here. It appears in conjunction with specific consensus on Talk about the language in question. The consensus was reached after discussion died down, with 3 editors supporting and one editor not outright objecting, but raising a minor concern that was addressed. The other opposition voiced their opinions later, after the edit had been instituted, and no one at that time sought to actually edit the article. Then the edit stood for 1.5 years (which you repeatedly fail to acknowledge).
Second, none of what you've described about WP:EDITCON appears in the section of the policy, or indeed anywhere on that policy page as far as I can tell. It also doesn't appear at WP:RULES. It's literally just one interpretation, via imagining some kind of 'descriptive/prescriptive' binary of edits and differing rules pertaining to each. It also, as I said in point one, completely ignores the actual discussion and consensus that was reached before implementation. This wasn't some drive-by edit that received no attention; it was proposed, discussed, implemented with consensus, then after the fact a few raised weak arguments against it but did not push further or take action to remove the edit. I don't think it rises to the level of "controversial" when no one tried to remove it for a year and a half and I don't think it was "without the blessing of explicit consensus" when the talk page shows the discussion and consensus before the time of the edit.
--Pinchme123 (talk) 05:14, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If I'm counting correctly, the proposed change had six supporting (including the original poster) and five opposing votes by the time the discussion was archived (not counting one "comment" whose author finally clearly said that they were against general capitalization), which doesn't indicate consensus to make the change, but rather some kind of tie (which is usually resolved by keeping the status quo ante). In that case, apparently nobody had noticed that the edit that failed to reach consensus had already been made, but EDITCON can certainly not be reached by ignoring the outcome of a discussion that didn't go as the initial poster had hoped. Gawaon (talk) 05:27, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well no. The edit was made on 23 November 2022, at which time the discussion had 3 supports, one comment raising a concern related to ngrams that had been responded to, and had been stale for 6 days. The next comment contributing to the discussion (another support) wasn't made until 9 days after the edit implementation. It was another four days before the discussion briefly picked up again, before dying down that same day. The final archived comment came in 2.5 months later, well after discussion had subsided entirely. At no time did anyone revert the addition to the article. --Pinchme123 (talk) 05:50, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
At some point, you have to follow common sense. A lot of Wikipedia procedure around things like interpreting consensus is not written down. Capitalizing "Indigenous" across all articles is a massive change that cannot possibly be decided by 3 people in under 48 hours, so even if the discussion ended there, there would still be no consensus to make such an invasive change. There is a reason why we prefer to do things by the book (such as having an uninvolved closer implement an RfC): to ensure the legitimacy of such decisions.
I think this reveals a difference in our constitutional philosophy: You believe that the text of policies and guidelines is sovereign. Once added, whether through BOLD changes or through a proper RfC, and uncontested for a substantial amount of time, it becomes the new consensus. However, I believe that the text of policies and guidelines is merely a summary of community consensus. So for example, unilateral changes can stick only if they are uncontestable (as opposed to merely uncontested at the time). In fact, even if a proper RfC takes place and the closer changes the text of the policy/guideline to reflect their interpretation of the RfC consensus, we might still go back to the original RfC (rather than wikilawyer over the exact wording of the text added by the closer) if there is some ambiguity which needs to be resolved five years later. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:40, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What constitution? Seriously, I have no idea how the concept of "constitutional philosophy" applies here.
Please don't declare what I believe. I believe that previously-discussed language, included in an edit that went unchallenged for a year and a half, until it that challenge came during a related Move Request, does in fact have what common sense would call prior consensus. This is how consensus is reached on the project; this belief also doesn't torture logic to justify why it was appropriate to remove language from a stable MOS page relevant to a Move Request, during that very move request. You keep implying this language was always contested, but it was stable for 1.5 years! I won't waste time to count how many editors altered the page between when the language was introduced and when you tried to remove it, but the number has to be in the dozens if not hundreds, suggesting at least a few additional eyes were seeing this language and had no problem with it.
The real problem here is this: "unilateral changes can stick only if they are uncontestable". No where is it even suggested that a bold edit can only become consensus-supported over time because it is "uncontestable". This is patently absurd, because literally every edit is contestable, yet much of WP's consensus is the result of uncontested, but contestable, edits.
--Pinchme123 (talk) 07:23, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Previously discussed, yes, but never previously agreed upon. You seem to think that the fact that no one removed the wording from the guideline in 1.5 years should override the fact that it never achieved consensus. To me this is nothing more than an accident of history, and the lack of consensus overrides whatever one person changed on the guideline page. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 07:42, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It may also be worth pointing out that we're talking about a single word in an example here. Examples don't establish policy and editors making other changes will usually pay them little heed. Gawaon (talk) 07:47, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) I should perhaps clarify (and soften) my previous point a bit. I can see how, if a unilateral change to a guideline becomes accepted to the point where it is widely cited across discussions and goes unchallenged every time, then it can be considered part of implicit community consensus, and if somebody raises an objection after hundreds of such discussions it would be considered too late. But that is not the case here. Let's take a look at the citations of the guidelines in question: WP:INDIGENOUS, MOS:RACECAPS (note: most of these are about "Black", need to filter manually). A couple of RMs and CfDs and WikiProjects, primarily cited by people from the original discussion, with little evidence of broader community usage. No broader policy discussions treating either change as settled law. It's not about the duration of time; it's about the depth and breadth of consensus. You could bury a change in some little-trafficked guideline for 10 years and it still would have no validity. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 08:02, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Moreover, the discussion was also criticized for being a duplicate of another (Cap Indigenous?) that was still open at that time and showed a preference for lower rather than upper case. Clearly, in that context, the open discussion should have been continued rather than forking it, as those opposed to the insertion at that time also pointed out. Gawaon (talk) 05:38, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"showed a preference for lower rather than upper case". See above, this simply isn't true. (d'oh! You're referring to the month-stale discussion, where the OP stated they "didn't really mean for this to be an RFC-like debate". My apologies!) --Pinchme123 (talk) 05:50, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would agree that it absolutely should not be removed. Back then I thought this was a done deal and now someone removes a year and a half old insertion? And it's an administrator bumping up against the 3Rs? Many would have gotten a reminder on Wikipedia etiquette for that. I recall a few years back when someone actually did insert a change to MOS on icons. No discussion at all. I complained when it was noticed two years later and was told by an administrator that's they way it goes. I moved on. This was discussed, it was inserted, and now an administrator reverts it 3x 1.5 years later? This place is tough to figure out sometimes. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:03, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    There is plenty of precedent for my understanding on consensus, i.e. changes made without consensus to long-standing policies and guidelines should not be considered valid no matter how much time has passed. See this comment from Number 57, another admin, for an example. (Please ignore my comment there; I had not researched the history of the "Placename, Territory" example, and incorrectly assumed that it was originally part of USPLACE when initially passed. The discussion ended in a new consensus to include "Placename, Territory", but if it had ended in no consensus, then the bit should have been removed - a change in the text of the guideline, but no change in the community consensus on the guideline.) -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 09:25, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Even believing that, once you remove it and it gets reverted, you should be bound like the rest of us in not doing it again and bringing it to talk. We often don't get the luxury of edit warring without a scolding. And I have seen changes made without consensus to long-standing policies and guidelines that are considered valid... it just depended how many editors would revert you if you tried to remove the addition. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:55, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Slow-editwarring to inject "Indigenous" into this guideline material is part of a long-running and still active dispute (I think there's another still-open discussion about it either on this page or at MOS:BIO, and I've seen others at the article-talk level recently, e.g. one on whether the Jewish population of modern Israel, the Arab population of modern Palestine, both, or neither, can be considered "indigenous" and by what definitions).

In short, there is an activist PoV faction who want to force Wikipedia to capitalize this word (and other ones including "Native" and "Aboriginal") at every occurrence, no matter what, when in reference to humans. Meanwhile, actual mainstream English-writing practice is to capitalize such a term only when it has been affirmatively adopted by a particular population as essentially a proper name for them (often not their main one, and often as a blanket term covering multiple related ethno-cultural groups, but nevertheless one that official or quasi-official statements from the group(s) in question has made clear that they are choosing to use and would prefer to have capitalized in that context, and which appears capitalized that way in almost all pertinent modern reliable source material that is independent of the group[s] in question).

Some of these terms should be capitalized in particular contexts, e.g. Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians, and Indigenous in several contexts including Alaska and Canada, and Australia and the Torres Strait Islands. However, it simply is not normal English, no matter how many advocacy pushers fight for it change, to capitalize these terms outside that context. E.g., "the indigenous peoples of Siberia", "the original native inhabitants of the Azores", "aboriginal pre-Turkic poplations in Asia Minor", etc. When a population has not adopted and "nounized" one or more of these terms as a self-label (a new endonym) in English, then it is simply a descriptive adjective meaning essentially the same thing as autochthonous or endemic.

If this recurrent disputation doesn't work itself out soon, we need to simply RfC the matter at a high-profile venue, probably WP:VPPOL and with notice at various MoS talk page, at WT:NPOV and related noticeboards, at wikiprojects on various ethno-linguo-cultural groups, at the anthropology and English-language wikiprojects, and so on, to draw in wide input. It's not really tenable to have this flare up over and over again indefinitely, much less result in further "guideline-warring". We been through a few instances of that soft of behavior dragging out for years before and it never has any positive effect of any kind.

PS: logically [indigenous] falls rather in the same category as "Black" and "White" – No, it definitely does not. "Black" and "White" as ethno-sociological terms (whether you want to capitalize them or not, in a particular locus or generally) refer to specific populations, which can be summed up as, respectively, "those with predominantly sub-Saharan/non-Semitic African genetic heritage" and "those with predominantly non-Turkic, non-Semitic western Eurasian genetic heritage" (mostly; how exactly to define "White" has varied over time and contextually, e.g. is sometimes extended to include Turkic groups and at least Ashkenzim, etc.). Even if one squabbles over the definitional particulars, the result is still something specific. By contrast, "indigenous", "aboriginal", and "native" are not specific and simply refer to pre-colonial populations of any kind anywhere (and not just pre-colonial in the European sense; e.g. the autochthonous populations of various lands now part of Japan, China, and Russia, for example). Any of these three terms can, in modern writing with narrowly circumscribed subjects, take on more specific meanings that pertain to a particular people or group of related peoples, and become proper names within those extremely narrow contexts, but this does not magically transmogrify any of these words into proper names outside those circumscritions. Various language-change activists are reluctant to accept this, and have taken a position that capitalizing them at every instance in which the referents are human has somehow become a new pan-English rule and that it is a matter of "respect". This is blatantly contrary to MOS:SIGCAPS, completely defiant of actual demonstrable usage, and is also deeply if furtively rooted in the "noble savage" notion that has plagued Western society since the Victorian era.

PPS: As for whether to capitalize "Black" and "White" in this context, to recapitulate previous discussions about this: We permit but do not require it. There is a consensus against capitalizing "Black" but lower-casing "white". The main arguments in favor of capitalization are: 1) as ethno-sociological labels they have specific referents so are serving the function proper names just like "Asian", "Turkic", "Pacific Islander", etc.; 2) they are not descriptive labels (no one is literally black or white; the darkest people on the planet are still brown and the palest, people with OCA1a albinism, are pinkish); 3) it is jarring and not really distinguishable from PoV denigration of certain groups to encounter lists like "Australasian/Pacific Islander, black, East Asian, Hispanic, Native American/First Nations, Semitic, South Asian, and white demographics". The principal argument against capitalization is simply that it's not yet universally done in source material, though the trend toward capitalizing these two words in an ethno-sociological sense is clear. I've encountered a second quasi-argument along the lines "we don't want 'white' to be capitalized in phrases like 'White nationalism' and 'White pride'", but this is rather senseless. If the subject were narrower, such as "Anglo-Saxon Protestant nationalism" or "Celtic pride", no one would suggest writing those all-lower-case. And the people who make this argument never seem to take it to its local conclusion, that phrases like "Black power" would also have to be lower-cased. No, they make a specific argument against "White". To the extent a rationale is ever presented, it is the false claim that Black is a "real" ethnicity and White somehow is not, but this is not an argument any anthropologist or sociologist would take seriously. It is not possible for white/White (whatever) ethno-culture to be the dominant one in Western society yet for that entho-culture to not exist; and Africans actually have wider genetic diversity, even between neighboring groups, than exists between the Icelanders and the Polynesians; treating everyone of African descent as "more related" to each other than everyone else is factually wrong. African-American culture in the US being something of an sociological identity unto itself is simply an Americanism; it's a cultural perspective that cannot rationally be used to force the capitalization of "Black" in a US context but deny it in a British, Caribbean, African, or other context.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:35, 16 July 2024 (UTC)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:35, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Most have simply been following MOS:ENGVAR, thus North American and Australian articles follow style guidelines setforth by their varieties of English. Moxy🍁 12:19, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The edit war was to remove Indigenous, not insert it. --Pinchme123 (talk) 16:45, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. Thank you. The capital Indigenous evolved over the years, due to Indigenous editors covering Indigenous topics using it in keeping with the prevailing trends in literature, media, and academia. Yuchitown (talk) 22:22, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have stated and I will restate my position. Nothing has changed in my position. When it comes to capitalization I will always capitalize Indigenous when it refers to citizens of Indigenous communities and cultures, in accordance with many style guides and evidenced in the content found within many of the reliable media sources we utilize. That is all I will say on this subject going forward. --ARoseWolf 12:35, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • SMcCandlish: Do you have any sources that says Indigenous doesn't apply to certain groups, especially if they claim it about themselves? I do think this editwarring about Palestine and Israel has spread to numerous pages, and the behavior of editors who have strong stances on that geographical area are spreading their viewpoints to long-standing policies and MOS that effect other articles unrelated to their "battleground". There are numerous style-guides that show Indigenous should be capitalized when referring to people; I haven't seen any that say certain groups should have not it capitalized when speaking about them.  oncamera  (talk page) 17:42, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It's unclear what you're even trying to ask. No one posited that the term "indigenous" (or "native" or "aboriginal" or "autochthonous") "doesn't apply to certain groups", so you're coming from an odd straw man angle. What's at issue here is that when a particular group has adopted one of these terms as (or as part of) of proper name for itself (whether the primary one or not), then it is conventional to capitalize it, across virtually all publishers. (See if you can find one writing "native Americans", "aboriginal Australians".) Meanwhile, it is demonstrably not conventional to capitalize every occurrence of one of these words just because the referents are human yet they are not a group that has so adopted that term. While there are left-progressive activists who have a taken a language-change position in favor of doing it, and isolated publishers (more often news, left-political publishing, sometimes humanities, less often social sciences) have gone along with this lately, and with ongoing controversy, the vast majority of publishers have not, so the practice fails the first rule of MOS:CAPS. This is easy to see at Google Scholar[3] and other aggregated means of examining usage in source. It is obvoius and conclusive that as generic labels for disparate populations, these terms are not capitalized except in a small minority of source material.

    I think what you're trying to do here is flip the burden of proof, i.e. "Show me style guides that say not to capitalize it." This doesn't work, because other style guides do not dicate ours, WP's MoS is especially not beholden to any external style guides promoting socio-politically motived language "reform" efforts, and our capitalization standard is based on aggregate usage in sources, not any philosophic arguments.

    That said, if I were inclined to take a time-consuming trawl through a bunch of style guides (and I will if this comes up as an RfC putsch to force WP to capitalize these words at every occurrence), then it will not be hard to find style guides that say more explicitly not to do it; I would expect at least a few of them to address this specific matter by now due to controversy in recent years.

    A approach that amounts to "I found an activistic style guide I like, thus I get to force capitals into articles" doesn't work here. You're actually trying to invert the burden of proof twice; your argument seems to translate to "prove there's a specific rule to stop me capitalizing this" when there is already a general rule to not capitalize anything at all unless it is capitalized with overwhelming consistency in independent RS. Most external style guides also have a general rule to lowercase by default and only capitalize what they enumerate in various sections as things to capitalize, so if these specific cases don't have a "capitalize these" rule in some section, then such a style guide is already against capitalizing them. No style guide (including ours) has to individually list hundreds of thousands of words to not capitalize when it already as a "lowercase by default" rule; that's the very point of the default rule.

    PS: activism material trying to change how English works is by definition not independent of the subject when the subject is reporting on how English works. Putting "Style Guide" in the title doesn't magically change that. Not all style guides are equal. As in every other style matter subject to ongoing real-world dispute, WP is not in a postion to adopt a "usage has changed" stance unless and until a strong majority of major style guides (of the reliable sort our MoS is based on, not self-published material from advocacy groups) agree on that point.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:42, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. The insertion "For more on Native American, First Nations and Indigenous naming conventions see MOS:CITIZEN and WP:TRIBE" should remain because being Indigenous is not a race; however, much of the general public is not aware of this nor are many Wikipedia editors, so will look for the information here. Native American is not synonymous with Indigenous. As an Indigenous person who is also Native American, I will also always follow worldwide style guides of always capitalizing Indigenous when referring to people. Yuchitown (talk) 19:14, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Even so, is the note buried in the middle of an example really the best place for it? Surely a better place could be found for it, maybe by making it part of the main text instead of just a note? Gawaon (talk) 19:22, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalization of identity-first language

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Perhaps we could receive clarification in a new MOS:DISABILITYCAPS or MOS:NEURODIVERGENCECAPS section about capitalizing words like "Deaf", "Autistic", "Disabled", and "Blind". I might have gone too far with "Blind" and was reverted at [4]. This is my updated understanding of the situation:

People-first "The" slur Lowercase slur Identity-first Alternative slur Alternative
N/A The blacks black people Black people African-Americans African Americans
N/A The whites white people White people N/A N/A
N/A The deaf deaf people Deaf people people with deafness hard of hearing people
N/A The autistics autistic people Autistic people people with autism N/A
people with disabilities The disabled disabled people Disabled people N/A N/A
people with blindness The blind N/A Blind people N/A blind people
people with epilepsy
people with diabetes
people with depression 		Not relevant for MOS:CAPS

Per MOS:PEOPLANG, "Deaf" should be capitalized because Deaf culture exists. Capitalization of Deaf caught on just like Capitalization of Black The same guideline lowercases "blind" until Blind culture becomes an article not a redirect. Capitalization of blind did not catch on.

I'm not sure whether "Disabled people" should be written because I've been taught to use the more popular "people with disabilities" all the time. The article has no source arguing for the spelling "Disabled people", so this could be moot. Google Ngrams.

According to the blockquote at People-first language § Identity-first language, "Autistic" should be capitalized. MOS:PEOPLELANG applies because Autistic culture (Societal and cultural aspects of autism) exists. Per MOS:PMC, we can't lowercase the blockquote. Per Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters/Archive_33#Discussion_about_capitalisation_of_Black_(people), we dislike mixing "Black" and "white" and abhor mixing "Black" and "black", so it is natural to avoid mixing "Autistic" and "autistic". It'd be confusing to fail to consistently demonstrate capitalized Identity-first language in the section about it. The discussion is on this guideline talk page because I also suggest correcting the Societal and cultural aspects of autism article. Capitalization of Autistic is trending.

Can we decide on some kind of guideline? 174.92.25.207 (talk) 09:16, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Case by itself can never decide whether something is a "slur". If it's a slur in lower case, capitalizing one or two letters won't change that at all. Also, our general policy is crystal-clear: "Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia" (MOS:CAPS). I doubt that's the case for any of the terms you mention (leaving aside black/Black and white/White, where we already have a policy of allowing both). Gawaon (talk) 10:09, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The capitalisation of "deaf people" is controversial even amongst deaf people. There is no "one size fits all" solution. Case by case is best and most of these should be left lower-case. And none of these are "slurs", incidentally. Some people consider them to be, certainly, but an allegation does not equal a truth. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:25, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why is an allegation list of connotated "slurs" being brought into this? it looks opinionated, fault-finding, perpetually offense-searching and is wholly irrelevant to Austism or Deafness. it's not even sourced by my appraisal. not even helpful in a discussion about Human condition. Yeah, if it can be diagnosed by a medical or otherwise professional, it gets caps. my two cents. right now, it's some people's opinions. can it be found where some other source(s), with merits gives their input? I seriously doubt this discussion will be simple. what is a medical condition? what is a trait/aspect of a person? which is important to Wikipedia? YodaYogaYogurt154 (talk) 00:34, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Can we decide on some kind of guideline?" Already done long ago; see the opening of MOS:CAPS: only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia (emphasis in original). WP doesn't follow the style guide of the "people-first language" movement or any other viewpoint-pushing socio-political faction. (Nor does much of any other major publisher.)

That table is a whole lot of WP:OR that doesn't represent the conclusions of reliable linguistic, medical/psychiatric, sociological, and other sources. Some of it's just obviously wrong, starting with the idea that preceding any such term with "the" necessarily makes it a slur (even the more specific pattern of "the" plus a plural doesn't automatically do that; cf. the Jews, and pretty much every other ethnic group for which WP has an article titled in the form "Somethings" instead of "Something people"; which form has become conventional for a particular group is virtually random).

Second is the idea that lowercase on a term makes it a slur. The OP here just doesn't actually understand what "slur" means. An argument has often been made, and is pretty defensible, that lower-casing an ethno-racial term like "black" or "white" in a context in which all others ("Asian", "Hispanic", etc.) are capitalized has a denigration effect. But that doesn't magically pertain to entirely different groupings of people, e.g. by disability or disease, but social class, by activity, by profession, etc. WP does not capitalize disabilities, diseases, medical conditions, psychological consditions or states, or anyting like this, so "deaf" and "blind" and "autistic" are in no way denigrating, as the treatment is exactly the same as "albinistic", "cancer survivor", "paraplegic", "amputee", etc., etc., etc.

Third, the "Alternative slur" column lists zero things that are slurs. The first entry is typographically unconventional since the early 20th century; the hyphenated form is reserved for adjectival use (in house styles, like ours that hypenated compound modifiers; some don't, especially in news). The other format is actively preferred in the case of various conditions, both in the medical profession and among persons with the condition, because a construction like "people with albinism" avoids equating the person with the condition directly ("albinos", increasingly interpreted as a slur when applied to people) or indirectly ("albinistic people") in favor of appending it as a non-defining quality. That the anon left much of the table empty suggests that they have little idea what they're talking about, and are simply unaware of what terms and phrases might go in those spots (despite several of them being really obvious). Meanwhile "hard-of-hearing people" (hyphenate compound modifiers again, per MOS:HYPHEN) is not a synonym of "deaf people" but a separate category (and this was obvious even if you weren't already familiar with the usage).

A central problem with this "identify first" proposal is socio-political projection of the WP:SOAPBOX / WP:GREATWRONGS / WP:ADVOCACY / WP:ACTIVISM stripe: this poster argues as if most people with a particular condition are "identarian" about it and want to be primarily thought of as "X people", definined by the condition, rather than "people, who happen to have/be X". There is no evidence to suggest this assumption is correct and much to suggest the opposite. The anon's attempts to speak in loco parentis for every group that comes to mind (and get it so wrong) is pretty offensive to someone actually in one of them; the idea that neuro-atypical people or neurodivergents (who do in fact often call themselves that; it is not a slur) are going around en masse demanding to have these words capitalized because they're supposedly just like an ethnicity is patently false nonsense.

Moving on to one of the strange arguments in the text, the fact that phrases like "deaf community" or "deaf culture" exist has no implications for capitalization, since these are different meanings of "community" and "culture" than in an ethno-racial or similar sense (e.g. religious, at least in many cases). Trying to view the former uses of these words (which are analogical) as identical to more literal ones is the fallacy of equivocation, trying to disguise a major shift in intended meaning of a word to trick someone into buying a faulty argument. Things like "the Gullah-Geechee community" and "Gaelic culture" take partial capitalization because the capitalized parts are, on their own, already proper names, unlike "deaf[ness]" and "blind[ness]" and "autism/autistic".

And so on. Pretty much nothing is cogent in this proposal to adopt aggrandizing capitalization-for-signification; it's all heavily PoV-pushing of an unusual and poorly supported viewpoint that a disability or condition is exactly equivalent to an ethnic group. PS: The fact that directly quoted material may have different capitalization or other stylization has zero implications of any kind for how the rest of our material, in WP's own voice, is to be written, either within an article or generally.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:34, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Stage name in all caps

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The singer Kamau Mbonisi Kwame Agyeman, currently at Kamauu, goes by the stage name KAMAUU, asserted in the article to always be in caps. I couldn't find anything specifically about this case. Anyone with better Policy Fu? Paradoctor (talk) 13:20, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fairly certain that "Kamauu" is the correct title. See the penultimate bulleted entry at MOS:TMRULES. Unless "an overwhelming majority of reliable sources" (not just the performer himself and sources associated with him) use the all-caps styling, we should go with initial cap only. Deor (talk) 13:59, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Paradoctor (talk) 14:21, 21 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yep.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:34, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, this might be a controversial opinion, but I'm not sure it's even worth noting that the name is stylized unless it's mentioned in a secondary source. I just think stylization is trivial in 99% of cases. Popcornfud (talk) 23:49, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. We have no reason at all to note in our article's lead that some band named Fubar stylizes their name as fUB@r on their album cover, if no sources but their own material (and things like auto-generated music databases depending on the band/label-supplied metadata) ever refer to them that way. It's entirely typical and tedious trivia that performer names, movie titles, corporate logos, and other stuff gets odd stylizations on marketing materials, but this doesn't translate into a distinct "name" for encyclopedic purposes unless a significant amount of independent sourcing makes that happen.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:39, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Very much agreed — but I'm wondering if we should avoid even mentioning the stylization unless a source explicitly mentions the stylization too. ie, the source doesn't merely write the stylization but actually comments on it in prose. Popcornfud (talk) 11:17, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Confusing wording

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§ Headings, headers, and captions says this: "Capitalize the first character of the first element if it is a letter ..."

I was confused by this wording, and I imagine other readers could be too. Thinking it was an overly wordy way of saying "Capitalize the first letter", I made an edit to that effect. After all, a heading that begins with punctuation like a quotation mark ought to ignore it and capitalize the letter that follows. The editor who reverted my edit correctly pointed out that a heading beginning with a numeral would not need the first letter capitalized. Reverting the edit, however, has restored the puzzling parlance.

What is an "element"? Applying a common definition—'piece' or 'part'—doesn't allow this wording to correctly identify that opening punctuation should be ignored, but not numerals. It seems element is supposed to mean word; in that case, why not just say "Capitalize the first character of the first word if it is a letter"? For that matter, why not "Capitalize the first word"?

Capitalizing a word is well understood to mean what's intended here; no need to reinvent the wheel with such tortured terminology. Initial punctuation is not part of words, but numerals are, and capitalizing means changing the first character to uppercase if possible. — Ardub23 (talk) 18:33, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed I think something like "Capitalize the first word, but leave all others lower case except for proper names and other terms that would ordinarily be capitalized in running text" should be fine. The current wording is certainly unnecessarily convoluted. Gawaon (talk) 07:41, 14 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
All of the above attempts to explain this are arguably worse than the original wording, and probably are why it was somewhat complex. The potential problem is that while everone seems to "get" if the first character is punctuation like a quotation mark, then the first letter after it is capitalized. But it is not at all true that everyone also gets that if the first character is a numeral that this stands into for the first letter that would have been capitalized. We've had disputation on this very page (or maybe it was the main WT:MOS page) about this, with people wanting to do things like "2001 Releases" instead of "2001 releases". (It should be the latter, but we don't say that anywhere any longer if the above-quoted material has been changed.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:33, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No such ludicrous wording is found (nor should it be) in the explanations of sentence case for article titles ("Do not capitalize the second or subsequent words ... unless the title is a proper name") and captions and headers ("Only the first word in the caption or header should be capitalized (except for proper nouns)"). Even if someone were misguided into thinking that '2001' isn't a word in the context of typography, I find it hard to believe that calling it an "element" would do them—or anyone else—any good. — Ardub23 (talk) 03:43, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:SECTIONCAPS and first word following year series and colon

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Something that commonly appears in sub-section titles of "history" sections in articles is a year series and colon followed by a title. Has there been a consensus on whether the first word after the colon (assuming it's not a proper noun) is capitalized? It seems applied and enforced inconsistently across the encyclopedia. Here is an example comparison:

Left guide (talk) 10:23, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:COLON says: "When a colon is being used as a separator in an article title, section heading, or list item, editors may choose whether to capitalize what follows, taking into consideration the existing practice and consistency with related articles." This applies here, so I'd say that both forms are indeed correct, but one of them should be used consistently throughout an article. Personally I'd prefer the capitalized form in such cases. Gawaon (talk) 11:30, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for providing that context. They do seem to be generally consistent within articles, and if I encounter one or two instances that stray from the dominant style, I "correct" it to the seemingly standard format for that particular article, but there's an obvious inconsistency between articles. I think there should be a consensus one way or the other, I don't really care which. Left guide (talk) 11:55, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, there was an RfC not long ago and the wording cited above (likewise in MOS:DASH) was the result. I have some doubt that a new RfC would find consensus to globally standardize on one style. Gawaon (talk) 16:51, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is probably the RfC to which Gawaon refers. Deor (talk) 17:01, 19 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, and it was primarily motived by the same question of what to do in a heading or article title. Its perhaps unfortunate that it came to a "consensus not to have a consensus" (this often doesn't really work well on style matters, because is gives people a feeling they can still fight about it). But relitigating it so soon, without some compelling new argument, is unlikely to be useful.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:28, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Parentheticals in sentence case?

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We have things in infoboxes and nav templates like "MLS Cup (Playoffs • Finals • Trophy)", where each linked item in the parenetheses is in sentence case, usually (see Template:Major League Soccer). To me it looks better as "MLS Cup (playoffs • finals • trophy)". Is there any guideline that would suggest capitalizing there? Or are the caps unnecessary and therefore contrary to guidelines? Dicklyon (talk) 15:10, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You just tried this on the navbox and were reverted. Maybe best to ping the reverting editor if you are challenging the usage here? Thanks (ping to SounderBruce). Randy Kryn (talk) 15:17, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Actually I did some such downcasing more than two months ago, and that one just got reverted. Others did not, as far as I know. Hence, time to discuss. Dicklyon (talk) 15:40, 20 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Use lowercase, since those are not proper names (nor are they usually even WP article titles, but just substrings). Lowercase for subtopical nav links of this sort already seems to me the most common usage across WP navboxes, but I've not studied this programmatically by trawling through navbox after navbox..  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:25, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reminder to rename categories after page moves

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I try to make a habit of going through closed move discussions and, often times, I'll find that a relevant category has not yet been renamed to match the new name or capitalization of the article. I just wanted to remind folks that it's a good idea to also nominate the categories for speedy renaming at WP:CFDS, which can be done with Twinkle for each category or mass nominated by using User:Qwerfjkl/scripts/massCFDS. If you are not comfortable with mass nominating the categories for renaming my user talk page is always open for these requests. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:56, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please also note that manually moving a category is not considered best practices, hence why it's better to nominate it for speedy renaming at WP:CFDS. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:00, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate that you do this. I'm usually overwhelmed with other related cleanup and don't often think of the categories. Dicklyon (talk) 04:00, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify, the CFDS should be done after the RM closes with a consensus to move the article; it should not be opened concurrently, since the category criterion is to agree with the main article.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:22, 26 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I felt that should have been clear based on the "after page moves" part, but it doesn't hurt to clarify. Never the less, I still help an encouragement/reminder would help towards the goal of consistency, since I think a lot of folks who focus on MOS don't also focus on categories. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:07, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
An interesting existing error, Category:Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and its related categories (i.e. Category:Works based on Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and its subcategories) get the name of the book wrong (The More You Know...). Randy Kryn (talk) 13:49, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Randy Kryn: Nominated for speedy renaming. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:55, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
...in the blink of an eye! Randy Kryn (talk) 13:56, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Now I need to figure out how to do this on commons, where it's also singular. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:57, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I took care of the commons cat. DMacks (talk) 14:14, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
does the commons cat say "meow"? does the commons cat like tummy rubs? YodaYogaYogurt154 (talk) 14:23, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Commons only accepts open-licensed content, so you are free to rub the cat's tummy without requesting permission or making any payment. And if you do not get the desired reaction, you are free to make a derivative-work cat for whatever purpose you like. DMacks (talk) 09:50, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Academic courses

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The article says: "Doctrines, ideologies, philosophies, theologies, theories, movements, methods, processes, systems or schools of thought and practice, and fields of academic study or professional practice are not capitalized, unless the name derives from a proper name." Is "fields of academic study" meant to include the official names of undergraduate university courses and qualifications, or are these covered elsewhere? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:24, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know, subjects aren't capitalized ("I'm studying for my organic chemistry exam"), but specific courses are ("Are you taking Chemistry 101 this year?"). Deor (talk) 17:09, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To extend Deor's note above, sometimes it is difficult to determine if text refers to a proper name when writing about a class, a department, or a named chair. Because I so often see the error, copied from the academic style of capitalizing things which are important to academics, I often change to lower case when it is ambiguous. So, if it is a real proper name, make it clear in the text. SchreiberBike | ⌨  17:33, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Yes, the names of undergraduate courses are often "important to academics". Just to clarify, for example, politics, philosophy and economics (which is a specific course at very many universities?) looks particularly ridiculous to me, as it is often abbreviated to PPE. If the names of undergraduate course are always meant to be given with lower case, I think this guideline should explicitly state this. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:13, 1 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If specific courses are something different from fields of academic study or professional practice, and they should be capitalized, then this guideline should say so. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:33, 2 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have no objection to capitalizing names of specific courses, such as "Psychology 303", but I agree with SchreiberBike that when it's ambiguous, we don't need to treat it as a course name ("I took freshman psychology"). The guideline already says we capitalize proper names, as evidenced by sources showing that capitalizing the term is necessary and consistent. I don't think we need another example of that for courses with proper names. Dicklyon (talk) 02:06, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd suggest that all UK universities will typically spell the titles of their undergraduate courses with upper case. Of course, that doesn't stop Wikipedia saying "we don't care what universities do, we have our own manual of style", etc. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:18, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect there's confusion here in part because course has different meanings depending on where it is used. My out of date academic experience is that a course is something I went to three times a week for about an hour each time over the course of a semester, but a course of study was my major (or the overall area of study I was pursuing for my degree). Either way, we capitalize the specific proper name of a specific course (either meaning) at a specific institution. So, "politics, philosophy and economics" may be a general kind of course at many institutions, but Politics, Philosophy and Economics also may be a specific course of study (or course) at Oxford, and maybe PPE 301 Politics, Philosophy and Economics is the name of a specific class at some university, but after lunch I went to my politics, philosophy and economics course. Clear as mud? SchreiberBike | ⌨  22:39, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If I understand you correctly, we might see, for example, entries such as: "At school he thought he would enjoy studying history or economics, but with such good A-level grades, he decided to apply to Selwyn College, Cambridge to study History and Modern Languages." ? That looks perfectly fair to me. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:02, 6 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm in no mood to argue (it's a dark day where I live), but you could say "he enrolled in their History and Modern Languages course", or that "he planned to study history and modern languages". A specific named program, course or major is a proper noun, but an area of study is not. I hope I'm not coming off as disagreeable, and the definition of what is and is not a proper noun is complex around the edges, but I'm done and I'll let others discuss. Thank you, SchreiberBike | ⌨  17:27, 6 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Besieged

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I found a few hundred articles starting with "The Siege of X", and have fixing them to "The siege of X" after checking each one to make sure it's not consistently capitalized in sources. A bunch of these I had fixed before, and a couple of editors recently went on a re-capitalizing spree, so I used revert and undo where I could. Another bunch were new articles, created in the last few months. I presume a lot of editors just like to copy the sentence-case title into the lead, capping even when it's not in sentence-initial position (and in a few cases, the edit summary essentially verified that). Perhaps some of them think these are proper names, in spite of typically lowercase uses in sources. I've still got about a hundred to fix – who knew there so many sieges? And I wonder if this over-capitalizing pattern is unique to sieges, or whether there are other groups of non-proper-name titles with similar issues. Dicklyon (talk) 02:36, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Best to open an RM for those pages. If the result is "lower case"? then you change the intros. GoodDay (talk) 02:52, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why open an RM to get consensus to change the lead? Primergrey (talk) 02:56, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Best to change the page title, first. GoodDay (talk) 02:57, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The page titles are already properly in sentence case, e.g. Siege of Kampili. Dicklyon (talk) 03:19, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Difficult as one would need to add "The" to the article titles, to lowercase "Siege" in the article titles. Lower casing intros of military pages? tricky, but I'll support it. GoodDay (talk) 03:28, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Right, no "The" in titles, but when the lead starts with "The X" we need to look at whether X needs to capitalized or not; not military specific, just that "Siege of ..." is one I see a lot. Dicklyon (talk) 16:29, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Cool. GoodDay (talk) 16:33, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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