Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters/Archive 23

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Requesting comments on requested move: ESports

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere; involves long-running capitalization vs. hyphenation disputes.

The present name of the article (on a general topic, professional video-gaming competition) coincides with a commercial trademark (in that market sector).

Over the last year, there have been 6 or so requested moves and other renaming discussions at what is presently Talk:ESports, most of them poorly attended, with mostly WP:ILIKEIT votes, mis-citations of policy where any was mentioned at all, and closure reasoning problems (while only one was an admin close), resulting in the name flipping around all over the place.

I've opened a multi-option, RfC-style requested move at:
     Talk:ESports#Broadly-announced and policy-grounded rename discussion

It presents four potential names, all with some rationale outlines provided.

Input is sought from the community to help arrive at a long-term stable name for this article, based on actual policy and guideline wording, and on treatment in reliable and independent sources (i.e. not blogs or "eSports" marketing).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  15:38, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

Question about "Pope" or "pope"?

There has been some discussion and argument on the Catholic Church talk page about whether the word "pope" ought to be capitalised, at least in some instances. The MoS appears to consider it to always be "generic". My view, however, supported by what seems to be the most common use, is that at least when referring to "the Pope" then we are referring to the proper name of a specific office in the same way as the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Ecumenical Patriarch. The fact that "pope" is only one word does not seem relevant to the issue. FWIW the Pope article generally capitalises the word. What do others think about this? Afterwriting (talk) 00:18, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

@Afterwriting: The Pope article needs to be cleaned up; its miscapitalizations carry no weight. A better example is the Pope Francis article, which has "Fouad Twal, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, included a call in his 2013 Easter homily for the Pope to visit Jerusalem." This is in agreement with the guideline that allows capitalization "When a title is used to refer to a specific and obvious person as a substitute for their name"; in this case the article clearly refers to Pope Francis, who had recently been elected. But the same article says "This was the first time that a pope had included women in this ritual", and this is correct, using lower case for the office mentioned generically. Just putting 'the' in front of 'pope' is not justification for upper case, as it can still be generic: the College of Cardinals article has "A function of the college is to advise the pope about church matters when he summons them to an ordinary consistory". Chris the speller ^yack 02:54, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

• Per Chris the speller. The difference can occasionally be subtle, too: "Francis was the first pope to have formerly worked as a technologist." Here, it is used as a common noun. So, too, in "Mediaeval monarchs in Christendom, while nominally subject to the will of the pope, often defied it." Not a reference to any specific pope, but to all popes during the time period, despite the singular phrasing. But: "Mehmet Ali Ağca was pardoned at the request of the Pope he attempted to assassinate." That was a very specific pope. At any rate, the urge to capitalize every single occurrence of "pope" is a specialized-style fallacy, and the desire to downcase it in every case (rather than just most cases) where it is not immediately in front of a name is an over-correction.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:10, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

MOS:JOBTITLES is misleading

The section sounds as if we should simply capitalize nouns of professions followed by names of people, which I was told to be incorrect here. Gamingforfun³⁶⁵ (talk) 20:00, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Way back when I worked as a copyeditor, the usual rule was to lowercase a title that precedes a name if it is itself preceded by an article or modifier—thus, "General Bernard Montgomery" but "the British general Bernard Montgomery" (the rationale being that "general" is not used as a title in the latter instance but as a common noun to which the name is in apposition). That Doom (2016 video game) article has "id Software Executive Producer Marty Stratton", so I think "executive producer" should be lowercase in this instance even if the style would normally call for "Executive Producer Marty Stratton" without the preceding attributive (which I'm not sure it does). You can't have an explicit note about every little exception, but maybe something about this could be worked in somewhere. Deor (talk) 20:55, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

I thought that they should be capitalized when they follow either no modifiers, (EDIT: no articles), or non-possessive nouns. Gamingforfun³⁶⁵ (talk) 21:10, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Never mind the "modifiers" part; I doubt that it would count as what I had thought. Gamingforfun³⁶⁵ (talk) 21:21, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

This "a/an/the rule" would be a good clarification, as an additional consideration, though we should be careful; "the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, will ..." is correct style, since that's a unique, formal title and referring to a specific person filling it. But it's "a British general, Bernard Montgomery" because there are multiple British generals, making it a common noun.

The main problem with MOS:JOBTITLES right now is it is not distinguishing between jobs, on the one hand, and government, military, and ecclesiastical positions of authority, on the other, and all the examples are about the latter, leading to the impression that this is how to treat job titles like "CIA analyst" or "assistant manager of customer service". Job titles should generally not be capitalized: "XYZ Restaurant manager Jean Foo", "XYZ Restaurant's manager Jean Foo", "manager Jean Foo of XYZ Restaurant", etc. The capitalized style is a business address form: "Dear Communications Director Barbaz: ...", and is sometimes also used by journalists, when the company name is not also given in the same string: "XYZ Corp. was founded in 2010. According to Public Relations Director Vincent Quux, ...", but this is totally superfluous. The problem with something like "Vice President of Finance and Business Development Jean-Paul D. Von Deusen of Eastern Digital Communications Devices Inc." is pretty obvious: It's an undifferentiated capitalization mess, and essentially defeats the purpose of capitalization, which [in this context] is to call out what is a proper name of an organization or individual, and what is a descriptive modifier, e.g. what job they do in the organization. Style guides vary in how they approach this question, but if you pore over them you find that those that remain in favor of the capitalization of simple job titles are almost always journalism, marketing, business, or in-house academic/organizational. Those intended for a general audience and general publishing favor "down style" (using lower-case) whenever possible.

A private-sector job title would be capitalized when reported as a literal string, for an unusual title, e.g. "Jan Bearcat, in the role of Accessibility Evangelist at Snorkelweasel Web Development, said of WCAG 2 compliance ...", but this should be avoided, because obscure titles like this are meaningless to most readers, and simply beg for an explanation; this would be much better: "Jan Bearcat, an accessibility specialist at Snorkelweasel Web Development, said ...". And informal titles should never be capitalized: "Wikimedia co-founder Jimmy Wales".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:50, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

The Petticoat affair

Howdy. Why is the P in Petticoat upcased here and the a in affair downcased here: The Petticoat affair? Ping me back. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 12:02, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Should be the Petticoat Affair; it's a proper name even in the stringent philosophy sense, because it is not descriptive, but a figurative appellation. Most constructions of the "foo affair", "bar conflict", "baz scandal", "quux attack", etc., etc., sort have a proper name (in proper noun form or a derived adjective) in them, and are descriptive/identifying. Those are not proper names, unless they come to be universally adopted as such for a particular case (e.g. the English Civil War (which was one of quite a large number of English civil wars). We've been over many, many times here and at RMs why descriptive appellations for events like the Iran–Contra affair and the Lewinsky scandal do not get fully capitalized (the rare exceptions are when the term is overwhelmingly treated as a consistently capitalized proper name, and is virtually the only name used to refer to the event; this most often happens with wars, but it does not happen to every "Foo war" case).

When it's a string that's a common noun phrase, but refers to a specific incident and is not descriptive, it's a proper name, as in the Salad Oil Scandal; there's not really any such thing as a salad oil scandal that is a member of a class of salad oil scandals; same goes for a petticoat scandal among various petticoat scandals; the reference is figurative (even in the Salad Oil Scandal case; it's not the oil that was scandalous or scandalized; rather, it's a background subject-matter reference).

Some cases are in transition, and we consequently argue about them a lot on Wikipedia, the classic example being what is presently at African-American Civil Rights Movement (1954–68), a poor title. It's poor because it's confusing a) the use of "the Civil Rights Movement" often but not consistently used to refer to this particular civil rights movement, and often but not always capitalized in that context [contrast with the consistency, in both ways of "the English Civil War"], and b) the purely descriptive phrase "the African-American civil rights movement of 1954–68", producing c) a chimerical, made-up mess that no professional copyeditor would ever accept. But that article's talk page does not need another debate about that any time soon; the strife is not worth it.

An unusual case is "the Cod Wars" (which were not wars); that term, originally singular in form and lower-case, began as a hyperbolic journalistic description, like range war (as in there being some kind of cod war, i.e. a war over cod, going on between Iceland and the UK). But as the skirmishes and naval chest-beatings multiplied, the whole fiasco came to be known, quite consistently, as "the Cod Wars" (or sometimes still singular, but capitalized), and you can almost feel the tongue in the cheek – the usage is again figurative, just as in "Petticoat Scandal" (the Cod Wars weren't really about cod, but about territorial waters limits; it had simply begun over cod-fishing rights).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:43, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Objectivism

Part of the guideline states, "Philosophies, theories, movements, doctrines, and systems of thought do not begin with a capital letter, unless the name derives from a proper name". That requires clarification to prevent misunderstand and misapplication. For example, Ayn Rand's philosophy, "Objectivism", is always spelled with an upper-case "O", and it would seem strange for Wikipedia to deviate from this. Giving Objectivism an upper-case "O" helps to distinguish it from quite different theories called "objectivism"; spelling it the same way would create needless confusion. I assume the guideline as written is not meant to force "Objectivism" to have a lower case "o", but unfortunately, I have seen it interpreted that way, for instance the misguided edits visible here and here. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 02:59, 25 June 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, this is why MoS is a guideline and shouldn't be interpreted like some holy law. Objectivism (not so much in its exact content as in its origin in cult-of-personality, and its collection of insular adherents who barely if at all fork from the "received" program, is more like Theosophy, Thelema, and Rosicrucianism, or Pilates, Jeet Kune Do, Krav Maga, and Alcoholics Anonymous; they all have a "self- but group-owned" character to them that one must join or buy into en toto to participate in, even if not all exactly trademarks. These things are not like philosophies, methodologies, schools of thought, systems of practice in the broad sense; they're not integral aspects of a field of study, something you can get a degree in, part of industry best practices, or a broad discipline/art with many approaches to teaching it. In short, these capitalized things are more like religions, private clubs, or political parties than they are like method acting, agile software development, chiropractic, scientific method, yoga, kung fu (the vast majority of martial arts articles need to be de-capititalized!), libertarianism, etc. We probably need to articulate the difference somehow, and some things are on the cusp. DevOps is pretty clearly in the Objectivism and Krav Maga camp, while agile development (even if some of its adherents like to capitalize it as will always be case) is not, and scrum or Scrum is a judgement call or transitional, and lower-cased here by default (when in doubt, don't capitalize). The more people write their own approaches to DevOps that differ, and the more it becomes devops. The day someone can be a professor of objectivist philosophy, or someone publishes a ntoable new objectivist philosophy that markedly departs from the received wisdom of Rand, then we should lowercase it as a common noun, a set with multiple qualifying members.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:31, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

We have an MOS that states directly that philosophies are to go uncapitalized and an article which states directly (as it's first sentence, no less) that objectivism is a philosophy. The idea that one "exceptional" system of thought ought to be capped seems like a clear IDONTLIKEIT situation. If anyone thinks the MOS ought to be revised, give it a whirl; and the same is true for objectivism. If it's not a philosophy, then what do the sources say it is? Primergrey (talk) 12:53, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

The question is not really whether Randian Objectivism "is a philosophy" or not (I know people have strong opinions on that, and those opinions correlate strongly with the extent to which they agree with Objectivism, but we should try to keep that out of the discussion, to the extent possible).

The problem, rather, is that "objectivism" in a philosophical context means far too many things, many of which have little or no connection with Rand's views. If you say "Objectivism", on the other hand, your meaning is clear. --Trovatore (talk) 21:10, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

First, if we have an article that states, without reservation, that its subject is a philosophy, then we ought to style it as such. Second, good prose can clear up any confusion without resorting to misguided capitalization. @Primergrey (talk) 00:49, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

What the article says is subject to change at any time; it's not a good basis for making such calls. While it's true that it might be possible to disambiguate in other ways, the fact of the matter is that almost everyone who discusses Rand's system, whether they be fur it or agin it, calls it Objectivism with the capital O. It's going to be confusing if we don't. --Trovatore (talk) 01:24, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

What an article says can, of course, be changed at any time. This is about the very definition of the subject, one that is not being debated. So a change to that does not seem likely; and it's a fine basis for making such calls. Much better, at any rate, than an IDONTLIKEIT opposition to couldn't-be-any-clearer guidance. Also, I doubt that when objectivism is discussed (orally), people need to constantly say " That's with a capital O, by the way". This is what you appear to be claiming. Primergrey (talk) 02:11, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

No, I disagree, the state of the article is irrelevant to this debate. --Trovatore (talk) 02:13, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

You're the only one who mentioned the state of the article ("subject to change at any time") and now you're saying it's irrelevant? I couldn't agree more. I'm talking about the subject of the article (a philosophy). Primergrey (talk) 05:09, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

You were basing it on the fact that the article says it's a philosophy. That's part of the state of the article, not the subject of the article. Remember that Wikipedia is not a reliable source. --Trovatore (talk) 05:25, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

So now you're claiming that it isn't a philosophy? Even if we needed to source for style (we don't), I'm pretty sure that one's a slam dunk. Bottom line: it's a philosophy and the MOS clearly says to not cap philosophies. Primergrey (talk) 20:53, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Well, the MoS is a guideline and allows for occasional exceptions. In this case, Objectivism is so universally capitalized in all the literature that it would be really odd for us to do otherwise.

If we want to generalize, then I think Stanton's ideas are well expressed. When Rand was alive, the only reliable way to know whether a given proposition was in accord with Objectivism was to ask Rand. That is a pretty clear distinction from the general run of things we call "philosophies". But while I agree with the spirit of his proposals, I am not sure they translate into a practically applicable guideline; that needs more thought. For the specific case of Objectivism, though, I think we just follow the universal practice and quote IAR if necessary. --Trovatore (talk) 21:42, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

The relevant MOS section also covers doctrines and systems of thought, so unless there are sources saying it's a religion, it's still very clear. Also, IAR does not exist as a final bulwark of your resistance to straightforward guidance. Primergrey (talk) 22:07, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

As I say, it's basically universal in the literature. I think consensus on this one is not going to change. --Trovatore (talk) 22:11, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm afraid you're right. The consensus that it doesn't look ridiculous to have an MOS that states clearly that philosophies are not to be capped, and have a high profile philosophy page that uses caps. Looks like an article-to-article free-for-all. Just like every other wiki. Primergrey (talk) 03:10, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

When guidelines don't quite match usage, it is OK to make fun of them. It's also OK to try to amend them. Up to you. Dicklyon (talk) 04:20, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

I happen to believe that consistency across (quality) articles is a major factor in this project's being seen as a legitimate resource (it's why I started editing so I'm certain of at least one person for whom it is the case, and I suspect there might be three or four more). I have no special love, hatred, sexual desire, or horrifying childhood memory of philosophy, I just find it jarring to go to a philosophy article where Objectivism is planted in the same paragraph as relativism or determinism. Primergrey (talk) 05:25, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

I agee wholeheartedly with Primergrey. Consistency, at least within articles, is a mark of quality. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:37, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

I really don't see this as being inconsistent. It would be actively misleading to use the lowercase "objectivism", parallel to "relativism" or "determinism", if you mean Rand's system of thought. Her views are almost always referred to as "Objectivism" (including by her!) and the lowercase version sounds like something much more general (say, a belief in the existence of objective truth). --Trovatore (talk) 21:06, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

"Doctrinal topics or canonical religious ideas that may be traditionally capitalized within a faith are given in lower case in Wikipedia." So if it's a philosophy, it should be uncapped; and if it's more dogmatic than that, still probably uncapped. But that's just per the MOS. I'm not opposed to a potential tweaking of it, but the current state of this issue is a contradictory one; and while I have no doubt that some people are less bothered by this than I am, I'm also pretty sure no one is totally fine with it either. Primergrey (talk) 00:01, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Slavish adherence to the MOS is not a virtue. --Trovatore (talk) 00:03, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

"Slavish" adherence to anything isn't a virtue; adherence to the MOS is. If this is an exception to the general rule and it has consensus, then it should be added to the MOS. The fact that Rand uppercased her system is irrelevant; we don't go along with people's vanity. If there's any danger, in context, of confusion, then write "Rand's objectivism". Peter coxhead (talk) 08:18, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

No, I think that would just be dumb. The MoS has its uses, but people around here have too high an opinion of its value. --Trovatore (talk) 19:00, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

(BTW, Rand's vanity has nothing to do with this. The point of the uppercase is to emphasize that it's not a general term for believing in objective reality, that it's more like a cult of personality than a philosophical position. That's not a position that would appeal to her vanity. For a while in the above discussion I suspected that Primergrey might be an Objectivist for just that reason; he/she was insisting hard on Objectivism being a "philosophy", which is nontrivially correlated with actually being an Objectivist. I don't see evidence for that anymore, but anyway I hope it's clear that we don't capitalize the O to appeal to the acolytes.) --Trovatore (talk) 19:15, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

So an article subject that is described by virtually all the sources as either a "philosophy" or a "theory" is described similarly by me and you think to yourself, "Pretty good chance he's got a vested interest in this." Are you a terrible detective professionally as well?

Seriously though, I'm sure glad you found some "evidence" to steer you clear of that damning nontrivial correlation. Primergrey (talk) 23:55, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

March Comes in Like a Lion

Hello,

I'm not a native English speaker so I'm not all that confident about that one, but it seems to me the "in" in that title is part of a phrasal verb and thus should be capitalized. Could someone tell me if I'm mistaken, please?

Thank you in advance! Erigu (talk) 19:56, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

You are correct. In has no object, so it can't be a preposition. (I'd call it an adverb rather than part of a phrasal verb here, though.) Deor (talk) 20:06, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Ha ha, I knew I'd get something wrong! English grammar is tricky.

Thank you for the (quick!) reply, but just to be sure: does that mean it should be capitalized? I'm wondering if I should move the article...

And in fact, now that I think of it... what about "like"? Is it a preposition? And if so, since it has less than 5 letters, it shouldn't be capitalized, right? Erigu (talk) 20:10, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Depends on interpretation; many would parse this in as c;early a preposition having having an understood object (the present, in this case), with into contracted to in, which we'll see again below. I.e., it's exactly equivalent to "March comes in, like a lion", and the more poetic "like a lion, in comes March". The lack of a comma between "in" and "like" leads to a false analysis of the "in" as integral to the verb when it is not. When I ask "Is the cat still outside?", and you reply "She already came in", in has not magically ceased being a preposition due to dropping of an explicit object like [-to] the house. A simple test to apply would be whether, by juggling words around, the questionable sometimes-preposition can end up compounded to the verb when it is "nouned". This is the case with up in the look up construction meaning 'find by consulting a reference' (as opposed to 'direct your eyes upward'), as in "look it up in a dictionary or database"; you can have a database lookup (or look-up). What you can't have is a *March come-in (or *March comein). There is no *come-in noun construction in English at all. Contrast this with some other come constructions, like "what a lame come-on!", and some other in constructions, like the protester sit-in, where the former preposition in both cases has become an integral part of the verbal construction and it's meaning, and thus that of the converted noun form. Not so with the phrase at issue here, in which the preposition can be dropped without altering the meaning at all: "March comes like lion, and leaves like a lamb", or can be replaced with something else, e.g. "March comes to us like a lion ..." (with an explicit object after the preposition this time). In just is not integrated with the verb at all.

The MOS default is: When in doubt, don't capitalize. Same goes with almost all modern off-WP style guides. There's clearly doubt about in here.

There is no doubt about like in this title; it is a preposition. See archive from two or so months ago; we went over this in excruciating detail. It's definition #1 at "like¹: preposition". OxfordDictionaries.com.. So, the article title should be March Comes in like a Lion at WP (and Chicago Manual of Style would agree; so would Scientific Style and Format, and almost all style guides specifically about music; New Hart's Rules, the UK rough equivalent of CMoS, declines to make any solid recommendation, but leans toward lowercase. Some journalism style guides with the four-letter rather than five-letter rule would have "March Comes in Like a Lion", and the house style guides of various music marketers would have anything from one of the above to "March Comes In Like a Lion" or even "March Comes In Like A Lion". WP doesn't care; we have our own style guide, and are not journalism, much less a music publishing company trying to make our titles stand out by Capitalizing A Word Everywhere We Can. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:36, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Thank you both (and sorry for the late reply)! Erigu (talk) 11:48, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Roles in software development

A discussion has started at Talk:Scrum (software development)#Capitalization of Scrum terms. Please respond at the article's talk page. Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:37, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Racial and ethnic designations

Since our general policy is to lowercase when both uppercase and lowercase are seen, I propose the following text be added:

Racial categories like "black", "white", "brown", "colored", "coloured", and "people of color" should generally not be capitalized unless they are derived from a proper noun, like "Asian", "African-American", "Caucasian", or the related linguistic category "Hispanic".

The main place I see these capitalized is when discussing the racial classification system of apartheid in South Africa. It might also be more consistent to capitalize when there is a list derived from a source, which might otherwise be something like: "Asian", "black", "Caucasian", and "Hispanic". Did anyone want to see exceptions for either of those cases? Would it be easier to just uppercase all references? -- Beland (talk) 02:19, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

"Archangel" etc. as titles exception

@Primergrey: In Michael's case it could be used either as a simple descriptor or as a proper title. Usage varies by theological persuasion and even within traditions; cf. the Catholic Encyclopedia article on St. Michael and this EWTN article on the archangels. (Also this Catholic Online article alludes to this briefly.) juju (hajime! | waza) 06:59, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Are there sources that cap "archangel" for Michael but not for, say, Gabriel? If so, that could be a compelling argument for an exception.Primergrey (talk) 12:42, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Not that I can find right away, though "Gabriel the Archangel" and "Rafael the Archangel" (for the only other two whose names are known) are exceedingly uncommon constructions; cf. this Ngram. And as I explained above, Michael's situation is different from theirs; for Michael, "Archangel" can mean something (head or prince of the angelic host, used as a title rather than a description) that it can't for Gabriel and Rafael (for whom "archangel" is only a description). juju (hajime! | waza) 13:46, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

See this Ngram (Ngrams not found: Rafael the Archangel, Rafael the archangel, archangel Rafael). 208.81.212.224 (talk) 00:24, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

So it's "Archangel Michael" and "Rafael the archangel", correct? Primergrey (talk) 03:27, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Looks like "Archangel Rafael" from the Ngrams alone. 208.81.212.224 (talk) 03:34, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

But keep in mind the different usages. "Michael the Archangel" is used mostly in contexts where its being a unique title, rather than a descriptor shared among him, Rafael, and Gabriel, is important. juju (hajime! | waza) 08:14, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Consolidating advice on titles of works

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Composition titles advice consolidation for discussion of merging composition-titles-related material from this sub-guideline into the main WP:Manual of Style/Titles (MOS:TITLES) sub-guideline with the rest of that material, then just summarizing the key relevant points here and cross-referencing MOS:TITLES.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:50, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Plurals retain caps?

So, we use caps for "the First Division joined the Second Division", as the proper names for the military units, but are the caps retained when plural? In other words, is it:

1. "the First and Second Divisions" or
2. "the First and Second divisions" or
3. "the First and Second Division" (use singular even though more than one)?

I think this same plurals question applies to things like "A and B Universities" and such.

I found nothing definite in MOS or the talk archives. But if I missed something, just let me know. --A D Monroe III (talk) 20:03, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Number two for sure. "Harvard University, Yale University and Cornell University"; but "Harvard, Yale and Cornell universities." Etc.

Some time ago I asked for opinions on this exact subject after someone tried to tell me that whether or not to cap in these cases is an ENGVAR issue. I recall that it went largely ignored Primergrey (talk) 01:29, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Well, then we're not making progress. MOS still doesn't say. Our articles tend to use #1 for military, though some edit war over this, hence my question here. For universities and counties, it tends to be #2, but I've seen #1 for Rivers. I don't see why. (Maybe it has to do with some river names sharing names with areas; "the Mississippi and Ohio rivers" might seem to mean all the rivers in both states, but I'm just guessing.) What is the basis for being "sure" here? We need some consensus to put the answer in MOS. --A D Monroe III (talk) 17:39, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

There's an old Reference Desk thread about the topic here, for what it's worth. Deor (talk) 19:22, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Looking through the previous threads, it seems that official style guides are inconclusive or silent; some favor #2, but weakly, and have sometimes used #1. There are suggestions that #1 is more British and #2 is more American, but that's not substantiated. Nothing has gotten into MOS because none of this is definitive.

So, I propose that we make our own definite MOS decision on this, based on what's best for WP, similar to what was done with MOS:LQ. There, we chose a rule for the order of punctuation in quotes, based not on what's "right" or "wrong", but on whatever avoids the most confusion for our WP readers.

With the idea of adding a recommendation to MOS on plurals of proper nouns, please choose the phrase that WP should use to refer to (for example) the Missouri River and Mississippi River together:

0: Don't mention this in MOS

1: "the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers"

2: "the Missouri and Mississippi rivers"

3: Missouri and Mississippi River"

4: As chosen by the first editor in an article to use any of the above three styles

5: Avoid ever referring to them together

My opinions:

• 0 (our current situation) is poor because it allows pointless edit wars.
• 1 has no issues for me. It has the "sin" of making a plural out of a proper noun, but we do that already ("the Kennedys", "the Hatfields and McCoys"). Some readers might incorrectly suppose there exists a single proper noun with the combined name, but that's harmless; any meaning attached to that by the reader would be the same as the intended meaning anyway.
• 2 is particularly poor because it could easily be interpreted as "the rivers in the states of Missouri and Mississippi".
• 3 is okay, but feels a bit awkward -- looks like some kind of typo.
• 4 just makes the edit wars slower but sneakier, as I've seen used for MOS:ENGVAR and MOS:ERA ("Oh, so sorry, I guess did that change by mistake, but it's too late for you to change it back now! Reverting").
• 5 would just make for tedious reading; extending this to ~5 or more items in a single sentence gets ridiculous.

So, I'm left with #1. Again, this is ignoring what might be right or wrong, and just thinking about the readers. --A D Monroe III (talk) 15:47, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Your "Kennedy" example of "the sin of pluralizing proper nouns" is off the mark. "Kennedy" is always a proper noun. "River, "university", "infantry battalion", and "marine" are all common nouns and that they are also part of one or more proper names is, for the purposes of this discussion, a coincidence. "...the Mississippi and Ohio rivers..." has "rivers" as a descriptor. Nothing more. As for thinking about the readers, we are all readers. Editing Wikipedia has not, as far as I can tell, affected my ability to comprehend written English for better or worse. None of the capping options would confuse or confound me. But #1 would make me think "that's a bit sloppy." So put me down for #2, which is not "particularly poor" for any reason, least of which is a possible erroneous interpretation easily avoided with context and quality prose. Primergrey (talk) 05:37, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

I think some more careful distinctions are needed. "River" is not a necessary part of the proper name of a river; one can write "the Mississipi" or "the Thames" as well as "the Mississipi River" or "the River Thames". (Indeed, a case could be made that "river" here is just a qualification rather than part of the name, distinguishing the river from some other feature with the same proper name.) Now consider "Lake Michigan" and "Lake Ontario". In neither case does it seem possible to use "Michigan" or "Ontario" alone to mean the lake, so "Lake" appears to be an intrinsic part of the proper name. So should it be "found in Lakes Michigan and Ontario" or "found in lakes Michigan and Ontario"? I would say definitely the former, although I would prefer "found in Lake Michigan and Lake Ontario". Peter coxhead (talk) 07:35, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

I'd argue that there are no variations of a proper name and that works the other way, too; there are the British Isles, but Ireland is a British isle. The plural aspect of it is a bit of a red herring. Primergrey (talk) 12:38, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

That can't be quite right, because of forms like "the Kennedys" or "the Americas" both of which are plurals of singular proper nouns, and behave grammatically as proper nouns should (e.g. requiring a determiner). Peter coxhead (talk) 17:49, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

But "Kennedy" is never lowercase so it's not going to be simply because it's pluralized. But the things being discussed here are common nouns that are parts of proper names. If there were three rivers each called "Ohio River", then to refer to them collectively would be "Ohio Rivers". That's the Kennedy thing and red herring was a poor description of what I should have referred to as non-tangential. It is completely different than saying the "Ohio, Snake, and Colorado rivers. "The latter is simply a common noun identifying the items listed.Primergrey (talk) 01:44, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

If you combine two proper nouns to avoid repetition, you still have proper nouns.

• "The French and German Armies" - You have combined two proper nouns: "the French Army" and "the German Army".
• "The armies of the Germany and France" - you have combined two common nouns: "the army of Germany" and "the army of France". (Note: the army is owned by the country per the use of the preposition "of".)
• "The Cumberland and Ohio Rivers" - You have combined two proper nouns: "the Cumberland River" and "the Ohio River".
• "The rivers of Tennessee and Kentucky" - You have combined two common nouns "the rivers of Tennessee" and "the rivers of Kentucky".

If you can split the term to make two proper nouns, then the combination to avoid repetition is also a proper noun. TimothyJosephWood 22:36, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Expanding on this: A shortened name, whether a hypocorism or euphemism, makes no difference. The fact that you can split Lakes Michigan and Ontario into separate proper nouns, makes the combination a proper noun. You may refer to me and Timothy Alexander as "the Tims". But since it can be split, it is still proper. It's proper even if used hypothetically: "The Trumps of this world want us all to eat broccoli." TimothyJosephWood 22:53, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Then it would be "The presidents of France, the United States, and Berundi"?Primergrey (talk) 12:50, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, because of the preposition (of) implies the presidents (the general thing) are owned by France, the United States and Berundi (the particular things). TimothyJosephWood 14:00, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, but the example with the armies is not a good one: the word army is a common noun in both "the army of Germany", and "the German army (German: Heer), which is a branch of the Bundeswehr". A copy editor who is not the author cannot always tell if the author is using a term as a common or proper name. --Boson (talk) 23:07, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

So, User:Timothyjosephwood, would you write "Cornell, Duke, and Yale Universities"? Primergrey (talk) 04:05, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

@Primergrey: Timothyjosephwood can say what they would do, but I would write "Cornell, Duke and Yale Universities" if "Cornell University", "Duke University" and "Yale University" were in that context being treated as three proper names. The question for you is whether you would write "lakes Michigan and Ontario". Peter coxhead (talk) 05:38, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

• The US Army is not a common noun, neither would be the 101ST Airborne Division, nor the 4th and 5th French Armies. These would be common if said as a thing in general belonging to a thing in particular separated by a preposition: the army of Germany, the marines of the 1ST Division.
• The universities would be capitalized, since they can be written in long form as: Cornell University, Duke University, and Yale University.
• The lakes would be written Lakes Michigan and Ontario, since they can be written in long form as Lake Michigan and Lake Ontario. TimothyJosephWood 10:26, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

I totally agree with all this reasoning. But before any try respond with different reasoning, I'm pleading for choosing a rule based on reduced ambiguity for WP's readers. Using "A and B Xs", where "A X" and "B X" are both proper nouns, has an unambiguous meaning. If "A and B xs" is used instead, it may mean the same thing, or it may mean "xs in general of A and B" -- ambiguous. Let's use "A and B Xs" to mean "A X and B X" unambiguously, and reserve "A and B xs" to mean "xs of A and B" (where other wording doesn't fit, of course). There's a benefit to doing this, and no actual harm. (And it agrees with TJW's reasoning.) --A D Monroe III (talk) 19:57, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure that using the "ABx" is really going to make much sense to anyone who hasn't read this thread. It took me a second to figure out what each meant. TimothyJosephWood 20:06, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, it's the least optimal version. But I don't think we need to go so far as to declare it should never be used; that's why I added "where other wording doesn't fit". There's a lot of very different sorts of lists of proper nouns that can be made -- rivers, universities, armies, divisions or lakes are just a very few suggested here. I'd be surprised if at least one combination made more sense this way. --A D Monroe III (talk) 14:23, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Rough draft for discussion

Here's a shot at something to at least work off of. May be overly technical. TimothyJosephWood 15:30, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Combining proper nouns

Proper nouns which share portions of their name may be combined for the sake of brevity. For example, "the Mississippi and Amazon Rivers", where the original proper nouns are "Mississippi River" and "Amazon River". If proper nouns are combined in this way the entire combination is capitalized (e.g., not Mississippi and Amazon rivers).

This does not apply in cases where the proper noun is the object of a preposition, and the subject of the sentence a common noun. For example, "the rivers of Scotland and England", where "rivers" is the subject, "of" is the preposition, and "Scotland and England" are proper nouns and the objects of the preposition.

A good rule of thumb is that if you can write it in its long form as two proper nouns (e.g., the Mississippi River and the Amazon River), then the combination should be capitalized. If you cannot (e.g., rivers of Scotland and rivers of England), then the combined word is most likely a common noun and should not be capitalized.

These rules may also be combined in certain circumstances. For example, "The rivers of North and South America", where "rivers" is the common subject, "North America" and "South America" are the proper objects of the preposition, and "America" is written only once for the sake of brevity, but is capitalized as a combination of two proper nouns.

I would prefer nothing at all to anything remotely like that. I don't think it would help prevent edit wars. For a start, it is much too long and the issue has nothing to do with "the subject of the sentence" — and only coincidentally with prepositions. Though usage is not always consistent, it would also help if we distinguished between nouns and names — nouns being a class of (single) words. --Boson (talk) 17:59, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Isn't a name just a compound noun? TimothyJosephWood 18:07, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

A noun is usually defined as a class of word, so tower is a noun, whereas white tower and the Tower of London are noun phrases. --Boson (talk) 07:33, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Also, yes you are correct, that it not a subject issue. What I had in my head, and didn't express very well, was that it simply wasn't part of the prepositional phrase. TimothyJosephWood 18:10, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Rough draft 2 for discussion

I'll suggest a rough draft that goes to the other extreme -- emphasize just a couple examples.

Plural proper nouns

Proper nouns retain their capitalization when plural, such as "First and Second World Wars", "German Army Groups North, Center, and South", and "Ohio and Mississippi Rivers". Not capitalizing, such as "Ohio and Mississippi rivers", is not preferred, as it may either mean both major rivers, or all the rivers in the states of Ohio and Mississippi.

--A D Monroe III (talk) 19:27, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Here's a bit of an attempt at a combination. TimothyJosephWood 19:37, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Plural proper nouns

Proper nouns retain their capitalization when they are combined for brevity to form a plural. Examples include: "First and Second World Wars", "German Army Groups North, Center, and South", and "Ohio and Mississippi Rivers". Not capitalizing, such as "Ohio and Mississippi rivers", is not preferred, unless it is a reference to "the rivers of Ohio and Mississippi", as opposed to "the Ohio River" and the "Mississippi River".

• Oppose not only the proposed wording but the whole concept. "The Ohio and Mississippi rivers" is recommended by The Chicago Manual of Style, Words into Type, and the Associated Press; and even if the WP MoS is not explicit on the matter, it should not be setting itself in direct opposition to such respected style guides. (I don't have a 15th ed. of the Chicago Manual at hand, but Words into Type specifically calls for capitalizing such generic terms only when they precede the proper names, as in "Lakes Michigan and Superior".) Deor (talk) 20:20, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Attempts to follow style guides have gotten us nowhere whenever this has come up before. While there is some tendency for "rivers", some guides have regional variations, exceptions for different nouns, are inconsistent, have changed, or simply avoid the topic. They give no clear rule to follow, thus MOS has stayed silent after all these previous discussions. This promotes edit wars. This time, the current discussion is aimed at getting something definite into MOS, not by repeating the inconclusive arguments of right or wrong, but based on what might be best for the readers. --A D Monroe III (talk) 22:28, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

The general rule in the MOS is to avoid unnecessary capitalization. Evidence suggests that caps are NOT necessary in things like the rivers or armies. Dicklyon (talk) 03:29, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

MOS isn't clear, or we wouldn't be having edit wars over this. Style guides and common uses are inconsistent -- based on certain words or ordering or regional preferences or who-knows-what, and keep getting changed; trying to follow this hasn't worked. "Unnecessary" is personal judgement; we need something in MOS. When we adopted MOS:LQ (order of punctuation with ending quotes), we didn't follow the inconsistent usage, we followed what helped the readers avoid ambiguity. Seriously, there's no harm in capitalizing a plural proper noun; no punishment will be handed down from the Grammar Gods in the sky. However, there is some benefit to the reader. Why not go with that? --A D Monroe III (talk) 14:07, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Condescending hyperbole aside, our MOS has clear guidance on what to do "when in doubt" regarding capitalization.Primergrey (talk) 05:29, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Wow. "Condescending hyperbole"? Well, I am repeating myself, because some are avoiding the main points. Is that condescending hyperbole? Sorry, nothing of the sort was intended.

The only "when in doubt" I know of in MOS says "discuss on talk page". But most individual editors aren't in doubt; they are "sure", as demonstrated several times in this section. Other editors come along that are "sure" that the first are wrong. Isn't the whole point of MOS is to avoid edit wars? --A D Monroe III (talk) 14:46, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

• I really don't like this proposal at all and think that using the "Mississippi and Ohio rivers" example as a justification for it is not appropriate because the example is a red herring. Nobody is going to use some kind of variation on the phrase "I spent a week on vacation cruising the Alabama and Mississippi rivers" precisely because it's confusing. You'd say "I spent a week on vacation cruising the rivers of Mississippi and Alabama" so that nobody would be confused. It's a bad example anyway because the vast majority of the time this wouldn't be an issue, like exactly what kind of confusion could there be from the sentence "The First and Second divisions marched home"? The best thing to do in my opinion would be to ban people from using these types of constructions, so that we don't get into arguments, and insist on rephrasing, either of the form "The First Division and Second Division..." "The First World War and Second World War..." or "...rivers in Alabama and Mississippi". AgnosticAphid talk 20:22, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

To me, "the rivers of Mississippi and Alabama" means the various rivers in those two states, not specifically the Mississippi River and the Alabama River. And in fact, "the Alabama and Mississippi rivers" can mean the various rivers in the two states, as well. But "the Alabama and Mississippi Rivers" unambiguously means the Alabama River and the Mississippi River. If I trust the writer to have capitalized the R for some reason, then I know exactly which two rivers are intended.

To be sure, you can explicitly say "the Alabama River and the Mississippi River", but the repetition is slightly tedious. --Trovatore (talk) 21:02, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Again, I agree that phrases like "Mississippi and Ohio rivers" can be ambiguous, and I'm okay with adding some note in MOS to say that construct is generally not preferred for that reason. But I wouldn't say "prohibited", because there is so much variation in possible words and context; it still might make the most sense in some cases.

By extension of that reasoning, I certainly wouldn't say "never use plural proper nouns", as phrases like "German Army Group North, German Army Group Center, and German Army Group South were..." are tedious, and that's with only three objects; imagine 5 or more proper noun phrases together.

As to how "The First and Second divisions marched home" could be confusing, that also depends on context. If it were proceeded by "General Lee divided his forces", readers might mistake "divisions" to mean something other than the military units of "Divisions", at least for a moment; there's no reason for us to force editors to do that.

As with other MOS guidelines, our examples here are simplified for clarity, but exist for the most complex cases, not the least. Assume they're going to be applied where it's already given that a plural proper noun is best (for whatever reason), including those cases with additional context that causes changing the proper nouns to look like common nouns may cause problems. --A D Monroe III (talk) 22:16, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)I agree with you in part. I actually didn't even know there really was an Alabama River. I also hadn't considered the redundancy problem with more than two items; it really would be tedious to have to say "We took our houseboat on the Mississippi River and the Ohio River and the Missouri River". But if I had to choose a rule, I'd ban unnecessary capitals. I'm a little worried that on Wikipedia it's unwise to trust that people capitalized the letter on purpose. Most people don't know a thing about what's in the MOS and people get confused about what is and isn't part of a proper name all the time. I still think it is silly to use these "Mississippi River" examples in this discussion for the reasons I mentioned – it's a special case, not the usual situation. And there are circumstances where capitalizing a plural word that's being used to modify a title, rather than used as part of the Official Title Itself, is confusing. Specifically, with compound names that themselves contain two subparts, like if there was a book whose title was "The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Diaries." You wouldn't know whether it was one book or two if the rule above was adopted whereas if we had a no-capitalizing-plural-modifiers-that-aren't-actually-part-of-the-Official-Title rule you would know that's only one book. There are actually quite a few similar problems with this proposal if you just try to think of common Official Titles that end in a plural. AgnosticAphid talk 22:27, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

But they aren't unnecessary capitals. The example shows why they are in fact necessary.

There is too much "anti-capitalism" around here in general. Yes, we all understand that Wikipedia adopts a generally spare style of capitalization, and that's fine. But when there's a good reason for capitals, we should use them, even when not all style guides do. --Trovatore (talk) 22:31, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

No, they aren't necessary, for all of the reasons I stated. AgnosticAphid talk 22:52, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

I think they are necessary, for precisely the reasons you have in fact stated. What you seem to be arguing above is not that they're not necessary, but rather that they're not sufficient. That is probably true, but that's not a good reason not to use them. --Trovatore (talk) 23:39, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Definitions of proper noun and proper name?

Could someone please define them both, so I can assess the proposals above? Tony (talk) 23:40, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Here is a small part of what The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language has to say:

"The distinction between proper names and proper nouns
The central cases of proper names are expressions which have been conventionally adopted as the name of a particular entity – or, in the case of plurals like the Hebrides, a collection of entities. They include the names of particular persons or animals (Mary, Smith, Fido), places of many kinds (Melbourne, Lake Michigan, the United States of America), institutions (Harvard University, the Knesset), historical events (the Second World War, the Plague). The category also covers the names of days, ... In many cases there are different versions of a proper name, typically with one more formal than the other(s): the United States of America vs the United States, the US, .... In their primary use proper names normally refer to the particular entities that they name: in this use they have the syntactic status of NPs. ...
Proper nouns, by contrast, are word-level units belonging to the category noun. Clinton and Zealand are proper nouns, but New Zealand is not. America is a proper noun, but the United States of America is not ... Proper nouns function as the heads of proper names, but not all proper names have proper nouns as their head: the heads of such proper names as The United States of America, the Leeward Islands ..., for example, are common nouns. Proper names with common nouns as head often contain a smaller proper noun as or within a dependent, but they do not need to: compare Madison Avenue and Central Avenue ..." [The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, pp 515–516] --Boson (talk) 10:12, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

The problem with definitions of "proper name", as we have repeatedly discovered in discussions in the English Wikipedia, is the degree of subjectivity involved, as is clearly shown in the Cambridge Grammar definition. Who decides what is "conventional", particularly if there are clear differences between sources or between variants of English? What exactly is "a particular entity"? Thus some of us continue to believe that a species of organism is an "entity", so its English name should be capitalized, but others, including the majority here, don't. Trying to use such definitions as a basis for guidance in the MoS is fraught with difficulty. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:57, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

It may be difficult, but MOS already addresses this: words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in sources are treated as proper names and capitalized in Wikipedia. So if the sources used are treating it as proper noun/name (by capitalizing it), then we follow the sources. --A D Monroe III (talk) 16:41, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Note carefully the direction of the argument: the MoS asks whether a word or phrase is consistently capitalized, and then deduces whether the source is treating it as a proper name. Although this approach has problems, particularly when different kinds of source, including those from different varieties of English, consistently capitalize differently, it has the merit of practicality, being based on empirical evidence – the presence or absence of capitalization in sources. Hence I think it's the right approach. I wasn't arguing against it. My objection is to the reverse approach: trying to define what is or is not a proper name and basing capitalization on that decision. Peter coxhead (talk) 05:54, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Though the text "words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in sources are treated as proper names and capitalized in Wikipedia." may be appropriate as a general rule, it may need some tweaking. It appears to state that capitalization in sources necessarily implies the the noun phrase in question is being treated as a proper noun (although this conflicts with the preceding statement (Most capitalization ....) The Cambridge Grammar ... (for instance) deals separately with proper names and capitalization; and other sources also indicate that capitalization implies a special status including, but not restricted to the status of a proper name. For instance, EU sources will consistently use Member State to refer to a member state of the European Union, even when clearly used as a common name (e.g. "all EU Member States except Denmark"), and many reliable sources also follow this convention. A similar convention is used in many legal contexts. We could, of course, adopt a similar convention, but, as I understand it, we do not (intentionally) do that at present. --Boson (talk) 08:10, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree. As far as MOS is concerned, there isn't actually any point in deciding if something is a proper noun/name or not, except due to implied affect on capitalization. MOS makes a link between the two for convenience of stating guidelines, not because proper nouns are special in some other way for MOS; there is no other way to make them special for written text. Where some other definition of proper noun causes confusion, we just ignore it and just apply the capitalization per sources. --A D Monroe III (talk) 17:18, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Reduce source titles to SC or to TC?

The present so-called guidance at MOS:SMALLCAPS on reducing case for titles when citing (e.g. news, magazine, or journal) articles is pointlessly ambivalent. This leads to a widespread nonsensical waste of effort. A MOS should at least recommend a style, even if it does not mandate it. So which style is it to be? Sentence case, or Title Case? LeadSongDog come howl! 19:34, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

There's considerable variation on this among style guides. "The great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from." Some examples:

• Article Title for Newspaper Articles

"Capitalize only the first word of a title, proper nouns, proper adjectives, acronyms, and initialisms" (from Citing Medicine, second edition)

• CMS/Turabian: "The full article title, which is followed by a period, should be placed within quotation marks. Place the period within the quotation marks. Although Chicago traditionally uses the headline style of capitalizing the first letter of each word in the title, sentence style is also acceptable. Be consistent in your bibliography in using either style."
• APA: example shows sentencecase, even though taken from NYT.
• APA: examples here show sentencecase
• MLA: example here can't be distinguished between sentencecase and titlecase, capitalizing proper nouns.
• MLA: examples here show clear titlecase
• MLA: examples here mix use of sentencecase and titlecase
• Cambridge: examples for newspaper articles, journal articles, thesis titles are all sentencecase
• Oxford: uses sentencecase for headlines, journal articles, chapter titles and lecture titles, as well as generally calling for minimized use of capitals (as does WP:CAPS)
• Harvard: examples

No doubt this could go on all day, but we really ought to make a choice. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:29, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Why shouldn't the band/album/song rule book be here at the main document too?

Piriczki, I read at one person's talk page that having the rule book about band names, music albums, and songs not in the same space as these sections about capitalization here at this main document is confusing. Why do you think it shouldn't be here? Anyone else, why do you think or not think we shouldn't merge them? Nancy Pantzy (talk) 07:42, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Capitalization of "Canton", "Governate" (and .. Civil War)

E.g. Al-Hasakah Governate, Afrin Canton (as opposed to e.g. Shahba region). On their own, canton or governate (like government, even US government) should be lower case or when plural ("Rojava cantons").

Democratic Confederalism is also in question.

[I may have lower cased Syrian Civil War in error at Rojava. Does it matter if a war is ongoing? As opposed to e.g. "Rojava conflict" lower case.. But "Rojava Revolution" upper..] comp.arch (talk) 10:27, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, generally minimise capitalisation. Tony (talk) 11:43, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Job / politician titles

Is the following capitalization consistent with the Manual of Style?

• David Burrell, Congregation of Holy Cross, Lecturer of Comparative Theology and Ethics
• Paul D'Arbela Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Dean of Postgraduate Studies
• John Maviiri, Vice Chancellor since 2015
• Charles Olweny, Vice Chancellor, 2006-2015

I'm thinking the titles following the names should not be capitalized - lecturer, fellow, dean, vice chancellor. Not sure whether Comparative Theology and Ethics, Postgraduate Studies should be capitalized.

Also have a question about this: "Margaret Thatcher, a former prime minister of the United Kingdom" is correct. Same for "Margaret Thatcher was prime minister during the 1980s". Thanks. 172.56.31.178 (talk) 07:28, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Can I add to the above, a request for advice about the former official title Resident? I think it has to be capitalized because uncapitalized means something different. For example, Joe Bloggs was a British Resident in Canton means that he was an official with title Resident, but Joe Bloggs was a British resident in Canton means simply that he was a British person who lived in Canton. Is capitalization of Resident consistent with MOS:JOBTITLES? If not, how should the example be expressed? — Stanning (talk) 09:56, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

• Regular job titles like "lecturer of comparative theology and ethics", "dean of postgraduate studies", "vice chancellor" should not be capitalized. That's just over-capping of titles and academic subject (as in "I'm a Political Science major"). Exception: when conventionally used as institutional title prefixes that form parts of names, capitalize them: "Vice Chancellor Olweny", "Dean Paul D'Arbela", but "cafeteria manager Chris Jackson". Fellowships, chairs, and other special named appointments are like awards and are capitalized: "Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians" (which should have a comma before it in the example above), "the Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunications". More below. in the [p|P]resident-elect subthread.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:28, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

the P/president-elect of the United States

This is related to the above, so needs to be kept with it. But different enough to be a subsection so as not to muddle the parent section.

At Talk:Donald Trump#Capitalization of president-elect, user Michipedian and I had reached agreement that "president-elect" should not be capitalized when preceded by "the", as "the president-elect". This was based on the example at MOS:JOBTITLES: "...it is correct to write Louis XVI was King of France but Louis XVI was the French king". User Spartan7w asserts that "the president-elect of the United States" is not equivalent to "the French king" because "French king" is not a title. There is no other interest in that thread, thus no quorum for consensus.

I am seeking (1) a consensus for my and Michipedian's view, or (2) a clarification of the guideline to avoid future such dispute, specifics TBD. Thank you for your input. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:21, 13 November 2016 (UTC) Retry botched ping Spartan7W. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:23, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

There are are two "the's" as well, there is "the soup" (sounds like 'duh soup') and there is "the U.S. Capitol" (sounds like 'thee'). Using is as such: "the President of the United States" is 'thee', meant to denote an individual is titleholder of said office. Using 'the' doesn't create a common noun in 'president'; you could make the argument that you could say 'President' by itself and, in context, it would be a proper noun if the topic of the U.S. was understood. If you said 'the president' without "of the United States," then it is a common noun. However the title of the nation's highest office is "President of the United States;" in this context, if we say "Donald John Trump is an American businessman and politician who is the President-elect of the United States," we are clearly stating his is the occupant of the transitional state of the nation's highest office. It is proper because it is a title. "Duke of Cambridge" is a title, and Duke is capitalized because it is proper. If you were to say, "we await the the arrival of the President-elect of the United States," it is also capitalized because 'president-elect' isn't solely a function in this case, it is both an official title but also, by transitive property means Donald Trump because he is the sole occupant. In this unique case of the lead sentence, "President-elect," as applied, refers to both the office and Trump himself, simultaneously. Usage of 'the' doesn't negate this proper noun because its intonation, and context of the sentence, keep it proper. Once you have "of the United States" and use it to refer to a person, it is proper; president-elect can be common is saying "as president-elect" without the full qualifier of the title.

Is one introduced as: "ladies and gentlemen, Governor of California Jerry Brown," or as "the Governor of California"? Often times the bizarre intricacies of English mean different titles may or may not demand a 'the' to precede and qualify. You can say "blah blah blah, who is Chairman of the Trump Org." Chairman works by itself as a title, but many don't. Saying "this article is about Donald Trump, who is president-elect" would be a common noun, but once you make a full title, then you need 'the' to qualify and denote that said individual is, in fact, the President-elect.   Spartan7W §   15:38, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Your views on the pronunciation of "the" are conterfactual. The word is pronounced "thuh" when before a consonant, and "thee" when before a vowel, and the pronunciation has nothing to do with significance or specificity. Well, it can also stressed as "thee", including before a consonant, when used to clarify whether a person/thing is a notable or simply shares the same name: "Our product manager is named J. K. Rowling – not, not the J. K. Rowling." If you walked around saying "theee president" people would assume you were a non-native English speaker.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:21, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

If anybody responds here I would appreciate a ping. Probably Spartan7W would, too. Here you go, for copy-and-paste: {{ping|Mandruss|Spartan7W}} ―Mandruss ☎ 11:19, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

• Hi {{ping|Mandruss|Spartan7W}}. Upper-case President-elect, the holder of that title is one-of-a-kind, and thus a formal title. Then again, Lower-case when not used in relationship to a specific individual or, as you say, with 'the'. Then there is this horse race: the old n-grams showing a meeting of the minds as they dance along with eight years remaining. Randy Kryn 19:19, 16 November 2016 (UTC)
• A title should be capitalized when it's a full, formal title and it's unique. "Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom when I was growing up" but "Margaret Thatcher was a British prime minister"; the world has many prime ministers and presidents, but "Prime Minister of the United Kingdom" and "President of the United States" are unique titles. Highly conventional abbreviations can also be treated this way: "Thatcher was Prime Minister of the UK", "Theresa May is the UK Prime Minister", "Obama is the US President". A title should not be capitalized for standard job titles; doing so is public relations style, a form of aggrandizing; thus: "according to SchlorpoSoft production manager Jane Garcia". Don't capitalize academic titles ("David J. Farber is a professor of telecommunications at the University of Pennsylvania") except when used as a prefixed designation ("Prof. David J. Farber"), or in the full name of a special chair or endowment ("David J. Farber is the Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunications at the University of Pennsylvania" – these are akin to awards). Same goes for ecclesiastical titles: "O'Connell was a Catholic bishop in Virginia" (generic), "Bishop O'Connell" (title used as a name-part), "Denis J. O'Connell was made Bishop of Richmond in January 1912" (unique, full title).

  "President-elect" is an informal designation, thus it should probably not be capitalized unless used as a name-part: "President-elect Donald Trump", but "Trump is the president-elect". An argument can be made that "President-elect of the United States" and perhaps "US President-elect" are sufficiently treated as if formal titles that they can be capitalized; newspapers tend to do it and people seem familiar with it. But this should not be extended to mixed, less formal usage, thus: "Trump is the American president-elect". Part of the confusion over this stuff is that off-WP style guides have been in marked flux on this matter for the last few decades, and many routinely capitalized all job titles back around the 1980s. Some today permit even less capitalization that MoS does.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:21, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

"Incipit" rule in MOS:CT

See current discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (music)#Capitalisation of songs, arias, etc. Please comment there not here. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:30, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

The "incipit rule"

Under "Composition titles" we have:

If a work is known by its first line of text and lacks a separate title, then the first line, rendered in sentence case, should be used as its title.

I suggest rewording this as:

If a work is known primarily by its first line of text (incipit), then this should be used as the article title, rendered in sentence case.

I am only trying to express more clearly what I am sure was the original intention. The current version is open to a Legal Argument that in a marginal case (such as at Flow my tears), the mere existence of a variant form of a composition which does have a title, changes the correct capitalisation of the version named by the incipit. I do not believe a discussion among people of reason could come to this conclusion; the existing version of the rule is confusing the selection of the title and its capitalisation. I almost just boldly changed the wording, but I am open to suggestions of even more clarity. Imaginatorium (talk) 05:06, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

As said above, please keep this discussion in one place, which is Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (music)#Capitalisation of songs, arias, etc. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:53, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

This is a more general matter than music, and also affects much poetry, manuscript materials, etc. MOS:CAPS is the proper venue for discussing what MOS:CAPS says.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:33, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

• Support: This is an improvement for at least three reasons: a) it's less redundant, b) it includes the technical term incipit which people may search for, thus making this item easier to find; c) it accounts for the fact that there may be additional designations (e.g. catalogue numbers in various systems) which are not what it is primarily known as (i.e., not the WP:COMMONNAME).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:33, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Style discussion

There is a relevant discussion at talk:Mk 14 Enhanced Battle Rifle. Primergrey (talk) 02:04, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Dynasty or dynasty?

Please comment at Talk:Chakri Dynasty#Requested move 1 December 2016. Celia Homeford (talk) 11:49, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

It's not just that example, there are lots of others. What do we do about "House", "Kingdom" and "Empire". Dbfirs 13:05, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Should all be lower-case when they are not proper names (in native English or translation) but descriptive. For example, "Inca Empire" is wrong (its actual name was Tawantinsuyu, and no part of that name translates to 'empire'). British Empire is correct for periods in which the King/Queen of England was also the Emperor/Empress of India, but should be lower case for broader figurative use, just as we would do with "American empire" in reference to US imperialism in Latin America and elsewhere. The Holy Roman Empire is capitalized, because it had an actual emperor and it was actually named that in English and in cognate terms in other languages (e.g. Sacrum Imperium Romanum in Latin). As for "dynasty" in particular, we've been over that one many times before; I'll take it up at the RM request.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:41, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Wikiproject style merge

From the MILHIST project's style page::"When using numerical model designation, the word following the designation should be left uncapitalized (for example, "M16 rifle" or "M109 howitzer") unless it is a proper noun." This guidance (it is a guideline) has been part of the page for over five years and should be incorporated into MOSCAPS's military section. Primergrey (talk) 18:48, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

• Agreed, though MOS:MIL needs copyediting to stop asserting that it is both a WP guideline and part of a wikiproject. Either it's a guideline that has a scope, irrespective of any article's wikiproject tagging, and is part of WP's guidelines in common, or it is a WP:PROJPAGE essay controlled by the wikiproject; it cannot be both.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:56, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I thought it was odd, particularly given some of MILHIST's members' reluctance/ambivalence toward following it. It seems redundant as guidance anyway and whatever becomes of it I still feel that those articles should be downcased per MOSCAPS and your further explanation of the situation. Primergrey (talk) 03:28, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

• Object, since there is disagreement over the rule and how to apply it. See Talk:Mk 14 Enhanced Battle Rifle‎. Felsic2 (talk) 00:31, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
  • See WP:CONLEVEL policy. A lack of consensus at a wikiproject or a sub-guideline does not magically trump a site-wide consensus like MOSCAPS. The all-Wikipedia general rule applies, unless and until a consensus actually does emerge to include an exception for this gun over-capitalization as some kind of special convention. The only reason for such a change would be proof that the reliable sources overwhelmingly consistently apply the capitalized style, and that means high-end, mainstream reliable sources for a general audience (major newspapers, books from academic publishers like Oxford University Press, etc.), not just catalogs of firearms and other specialist works. We have CONLEVEL policy for the explicit, sole purpose of preventing wikiprojects and other gaggles of editors from making up their own counter-rules and enforcing them on "their" articles. This was implemented because a) site-wide consistency is desirable for both reader output and editorial productivity, and b) there are virtually zero articles that have only one conceivable "scope" of interested editors (in wikiprojects or otherwise). E.g., a typical gun model article is a firearms technology article, a military history article, a manufacturing industry article, and often a socio-political history article if the item in question has a history of civilian use/misuse. We can't have editorial cluster A and editorial cluster B fighting over whose rules to use or (much worse cluster A telling everyone how they have to write about one oh-so-special topic and editwarring site-wide about it. This is why WP has a centralized MoS to begin with; people will fight about the same style nit-pick article by article until the end of time, otherwise. ArbCom has repeatedly reinforced CONLEVEL (including for style matters in particular, weighing in on both the date-linking and infobox addition/deletion editwarring patterns, among others.

    We've been over this "use this niche style because my topic is special" thing many times before, and the overcapitalization always ends up being removed (common names of species; job titles; natural disambiguators like "station" in transit system articles; descriptive terms for events, movements, theories, and processes; "the" in front of university and other organisation names; short prepositions like "as" in song titles; etc., etc.).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:28, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

The level of participation at the Talk:Mk 14 Enhanced Battle Rifle‎ discussion was greater than that which created the Wikiproject style suggestion we're discussing, so reference to WP:CONLEVEL may be misplaced. But we also need to look at the broader issue of creating style guidelines which conflict with common use. If almost everyone in the world refers to a particular item using capital letters, then it is rather arrogant of Wikipedia to decide that they're all wrong. Felsic2 (talk) 17:01, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Universe v. universe

This needs to finally be settled one way or another. I believe that consistency is what most people care about. In other words, any decision would be better than no decision. I propose having the word universe be subject to the same rules as sun, earth, moon, solar system, etc. That is, when refering to our specific universe in an astronomical context, it would be capitalized (Universe). Otherwise (if it's being used in a non-astronomical way or in a general sense), it would be lowercased (universe). However, I don't have a strong preference; my only preference is that a standard is established.

I understand that this post will probably get criticized because it's been discussed time and time again, but that just shows why we need to finally settle this once and for all and focus on more important things. 107.77.217.78 (talk) 06:33, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

I don't think we need MOS guidelines to define a house version of the English dictionary. Merriam-Webster universe defines no use of capitalization that I can see. In contrast, sun, earth, and moon define capitalized senses. Solar system does not. If there is significant disagreement between the major English dictionaries, I'd go with the majority. If I cared, I would be at Solar System proposing a move per dictionary, and I'd edit Universe to remove the capitalization from the prose per dictionary. I can't imagine a COMMONNAME argument that could supersede the freaking dictionary for these things; a dictionary's job is to document the common usage of words, and I suspect they put a lot more resources into it than a small group of Wikipedia editors ever could. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:09, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

A good case can be made for either way. I'd be happy to flip a coin over it. Wikipedia does not look as credible when it is inconsistent.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  19:19, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

What's the good case for the other way? ―Mandruss ☎ 19:23, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

I think your point about dictionaries is good, and last time this came up, I did a pretty exhaustive search of Google Books, Google News, Google Search and Google Scholar and found that lower case was much more common, so last time I argued for lower case. The thinking for upper case, that I agree with, is that in some uses of the word, it sure seems like it's referring to a specific place name, and we always refer to specific places in upper case as proper nouns. My thinking now is that I'd rather it went one way or another much more than I care which way it went. (The funny/tragic/embarrassing thing is that we have probably spilled more electrons on this than dictionary editors ever have and nothing has been accomplished, and I don't care to spend much more on it.)  SchreiberBike | ⌨  20:00, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Well anyone who does the lower-case edit per dictionary and gets resistance is free to ping me. Oh wait, that would violate WP:CANVASS. But as far as I'm concerned, the dictionary is THE authoritative source for spelling and capitalization of the words contained in it. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:24, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

• Upper case (see note below) the placename. We live in the Universe, the same as we live on 'Earth', 'Finland', or 'Guantanamo Bay' (hi pa). Now, if it were something like 'a universe of ideas', then lower-case seems appropriate. But for the Universe, there's only one of those, even if multiple-universes or bubble-universes are true, and it seems like the Mother of all proper placenames to me. Randy Kryn 21:12, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

  Sorry but that's just a terrible argument. When we have a clear authority in the dictionary, we don't need to apply our own reasoning and judgment, and it's exceediingly inappropriate to do so. Wikipedia should not define language via consensus on MOS talk pages. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:54, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

  The fact that you put "the" in front of it makes a mockery of the pretence that it is a proper noun. The saddest thing is that this "debate" makes a mockery of the concept of weight of argument being the principle for making wiki decisions - ie consensus. The astronomers will close ranks, the principles of wiki consensus will be thrown to the winds and no admin will touch this with a barge pole (or regret having done so. But feel free to waste more electrons ... Cinderella157 (talk) 12:30, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

  After looking at several dictionaries online the lower-case form is clearly correct per dictionary sources. Buckminster Fuller used the proper name Universe, but apparently his use of the upper-cased proper name hasn't caught on. Why, I not know and can't guess at, if Universe doesn't fit the definition of a proper name then all is not right in the world (not 'World', as the proper name for this planet is 'Earth', until it's changed via RM). So if someone wants to start a wider discussion, I'll support it, even if it seems counter-intuitive. Randy Kryn 12:44, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

  I don't mean to sound glib, but the English language is teeming with things that don't make sense. I think we're stuck with that, unless we convert to Esperanto or get invaded by Russia. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:11, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

• Depends on context. This should be capitalized (as should "Multiverse") when used to refer to our particular universe (and multiverse) in a cosmological and probably philosophical context, but not otherwise: "This is a universal adapter", "in Tolkien's fictional universe", "He suggested that no one else in the universe was more qualified" (figurative/metaphor/hyperbole), "the stories in comic books often take place in a fictional multiverse rather than a single universe", etc. Shouldn't be capitalized when used generically even in cosmology: "Our known Universe may be but one of many universes." — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:53, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
  Revision: I won't argue strongly for capitalization in the cosmology context; last I looked, many astronomy, cosmology, and philosophy people wanted it that way, and the objections didn't seem very compelling if we're not going to down-case Earth, etc. But I don't care that much. What I do care about is that usage outside that context should be lower-cased.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  13:09, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
• Huh? – Wasn't this settled to be like moon and sun? That is, capitalized what referring to the Universe in an astronomical sense and context, but lowercase otherwise? I realize that leaves some room for discussion, but at least it's something. But if we want to re-open this can of worms, I agree with Mandruss that lowercase would be more sensible, and more in line with the MOS:CAPS principle of avoiding unnecessary caps. Dicklyon (talk) 06:41, 25 November 2016 (UTC)
• Wikipedia should not define language via consensus on MOS talk pages. Regardless of anything that has been "settled". No policy or guideline has any bearing. It's in the dictionary. Unambiguously ―Mandruss ☎ 01:09, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

But when dictionaries and style guides differ, as they do on capitalization of universe, shouldn't we decide what WP's style is, so we don't keep arguing this at every article? Personally, I agree with you that sticking closer to the MOS:CAPS principle of avoiding unnecessary capitalization is the obvious way to go, and consistent with plenty of usage and guides, but I think we sort of lost that argument last time it was in full bloom. Does anyone have a link to that? Dicklyon (talk) 01:20, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Here's a discussion with a link back to the complicated RFC where it passed that we should cap Universe when referring to our particular cosmological universe, or something like that, even though NASA and most other authorities don't: [1]. I forgot about the apart where this led to a lot more discussion of the confusion it caused. Dicklyon (talk) 01:28, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, dictionaries do not define style. There's no such thing as "the" dictionary. There are many, many competing dictionaries, and they are all attempts to encapsulate meaning, not presentation. When they present anything about capitalization, they are acting as extremely narrow style guides, they conflict with each other, and with other, more comprehensive style guides that have usually done a great deal more style research (including our own). Style is not lexicography.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:22, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Previous discussions

• January 2015, 5k words at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomy/Archive 16#Capitalize the "U" in "universe" or not?
• January and February 2015, 24k words, all of Archive 14
• February and March 2015, 67k words, almost all of Archive 16 including a request for comment closed as no consensus
• March, April and May 2015, 30k words, all of Archive 18 including an RfC closed with unresolved contradictions
• December 2015, <1k words, Archive 20#Capitalization of universe
• January and February 2016, 1k words, Archive 20#Capitalize universe?

Over 128k words, not counting the 1,400 or so above, well into the range of a full book. I hope somebody can say something new.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  04:17, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

And the failed appeal was here. We indeed have unresolved contradictions (the attempts to "summarize" above are missing facts), but, indeed, nobody has anything new to add yet. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:35, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Dubious golf example

I moved out of the main WP:MOS page into this one the questionable claim that references to the Open Championship (a UK golf tournament) must be given as "The Open" in mid-sentence. I think this is poppycock, yet another specialized-style fallacy based on what the golf press likes to do. But I've preserved it here in case there really is a "The Hague"-level consensus in favor of it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:21, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I actually propose deleting this "magical golf exception". Over a week has passed and no one seems to care or notice. I'm not seeing any previous consensus discussion to add it in the first place, but have no searched exhaustively. Even if there was one back in the 2000s or something, I'm not sure it would be relevant. Over the last 10+ years, WP has moved further and further away from entertaining various and sundry random topical style demands that produce typographic chaos for readers and disputes among editors (especially when an article is claimed in the "scope" of multiple wikiprojects).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:07, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Titles

I don't know if this is the proper place to ask questions, but if someone could either clarify this or point me in the right direction, I would be grateful. How should the capitalization work in the sentence

John Smith is a Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology.

All of those words are capitalized on the university website. Should they be capitalized in an article about John Smith? Natureium (talk) 22:56, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Not "professor" and I would probably cap the department provided the specific university had already been mentioned. Primergrey (talk) 23:32, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

I just had a look at the actual edit you did and I agree with downcasing the specific structure department of xyz at Harvard University, this looks in line with our MOS.Primergrey (talk) 23:40, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Definitely lower case for "professor" in that usage. Uppercase "Department of Molecular Biology" only if that is the proper name of the department at the identified university/hospital/whatever, otherwise academic subjects are common nouns.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  02:27, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

MOS:JOBTITLES

This section needs some improvement, including stronger wording, because it is now often ignored or interpreted incorrectly. As a result, incredible amounts of editing time are wasted in discussing the use of capitalization in countless articles, even in discussing article titles, not only article texts, f.ex. Associate Justice, Counsellor of State, and others.

Although such senseless wasting of time occurs in many articles because there is often at least one fanboy who resists "outsiders" who "drop in" and lowercase terms they are used to seeing uppercase in the relevant literature, capitalization in violation of our MOS is especially common (and often not even discussed) in articles on political and legal topics because these professions have a professionally caused exaggerated Respect for old Norms and Habits (which are now outdated and incorrect in English outside of professional literature and legal documents) and a Predilection for capitalizing shortened Versions of Important Concepts. In addition, editors of such articles are often lawyers and politicians and are therefore good at finding and exploiting loopholes, the biggest one in this case being the WP policy to defer to usage in relevant reliable texts.

But the whole purpose of a manual of style and a house style is to not have to waste time discussing the same issues again and again. I and other professional copyeditors are severely hampered and discouraged in our efforts to make WP less amateurish and less difficult to read (and many have stopped editing) since we are forced to waste time on minor issues such as capitalization and are forced to try to find proof that also in the specific case discussed there is no doubt at least one reputable source that lowercases the term. Even that often doesn't stop discussion and edit warring. So we need to at least add the clarification that it is enough to find one such source since lowercase is the norm on WP.

For example, "counsellor of state" is lowercase in Encyclopaedia Britannica. --Espoo (talk) 08:38, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

(At the very least it would need to be "one such reliable source".) However, this would be a bad precedent; editors would then claim the same privilege of one reliable source for their preferred styles. I understand only too well that the time it takes to establish a consensus can appear to be time wasted, but it is a fundamental principle that Wikipedia works by consensus; the benefits are so great that the drawbacks have to be accepted. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:09, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Hmmm. We already have a consensus that job titles should not be capitalized, and it was established through that lengthy process. WP:SSF-based defiance of the consensus, because "my topic is special", and trying to require all other editors to re-re-re-litigate, on a page-by-page basis, the exact same matter we already have a site-wide guideline about is clearly tendentious WP:GAMING nonsense. I agree we do need to make the section clearer and more emphatic, because this particular issue of random editors here and there insisting on overcapitalizing job titles for no apparent reason other than personal preference is one of the biggest style-based time wastes on the system. It's one of the most common MoS disputes and one of the most common WP:RM ones, yet we've had an apparently not-clear-enough rule about this since MoS's early days. The rule is clearly not being interpreted correctly.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:31, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree that there's already a consensus. Espoo's well intentioned addition would actually weaken enforcement of this since it's a backdoor to requiring sources for the MoS and then allowing any sourceable style to be included. The fundamental issue is the difference between content, which requires reliable sources, and style, which is everywhere an in-house matter. We've had this argument too over WP:COMMON where it has been (and still is) interpreted as covering not only the wording of the title but also the typography.

Sometimes the arguments are indeed just a wikilawyering defence of a preference, but they can also be caused by a respect for sourcing plus a lack of clarity over the content/style distinction, given that content does need sourcing. The content/style distinction is difficult to define clearly: I've asked editors to do this in previous discussions, but not yet seen a really good attempt. The problem is that some style does convey semantic information, so isn't "pure style" – as would be, say, the choice of the main font used in a document. Semantic information must depend on a reliable source. As an example, a change of font is used in reliable sources to distinguish between trade designations (set in a font different from the main document font and without single quote marks around) and common names for cultivated plants. As another, italics are used distinguish between a word used as a scientific name and the same word used as an English name. "Azalea" is an outdated genus name. "Azalea" is the English name for some kinds of rhododendron. Sometimes copy-editors who don't understand the specialized semantic information encoded in the style erroneously 'correct' it. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:34, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

In my experience it's not the titles of "jobs" per se, like plumber and accountant, that are the cause of disagreement, but the titles of honorary, administrative or judicial occupations like Justice of the Peace (in the UK always abbreviated to JP), Local Government Ombudsman, High Court Judge, etc., etc. Although, of course, the edges are a bit blurred with such full-time paid jobs as Assembly Member, Member of Parliament, Member of the European Parliament, etc., etc. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:47, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

@Martinevans123: Those are job titles; "plumber" and "accountant" are terms for occupations, which aren't the same thing. Obviously, the latter wouldn't be capitalized either (aside from the presence of proper names in them, as in "a Unix system administrator"). We all understand the urge to capitalize government job titles in particular as if somehow being "official" in some sense makes them magically special. But knowing where the urge comes from doesn't mean having to go along with it. "It has something to do with the public sector" != proper noun. Everything is "official" if it's formalized in some way, such as an employment agreement. You can be the official night shift manager at McDonald's #53394. I"ve been informally tracking coverage of Trump, and mainstream publishers almost invariably refer to him as the president-elect, not the President-elect, much less the President-Elect, except when prefixed directly to his name (in which case they use the middle version). Twenty years ago that would have been different, with a roughly even split for the first two, and a century ago it would have verged on unthinkable not to capitalize as in the second or even third cases. The abandonment of willy-nilly overcapitalization, especially of nouns and noun phrases, has been a slow "de-Germanization" process begun in the early 19th century (even in 1776 they were still writing things like "... certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"), with the down-casing shift rapidly speeding up in the last two generations. Styles shift over time, like all aspects of language, and WP has to move along in that river, too. At this point, writing "Trump, as President-elect, ..." is the hallmark of an elderly person who grew up with that style, or of an inexperienced writer who hasn't learned capitalization norms and has no editor.
Many Internet bloggers do it, and have homepages an LinkedIn profiles that say things like "I'm a Blogger who focuses on Politics and Social Issues." I know some very intelligent people who write this way because they just never internalized the distinction between capitalization used for emphasis in advertising and headlines versus how to write regular sentences. I know a security expert who does this, one of my exes did it, and so does my middle sister, along with our uncle, but no one else in the family; of these four, three of them regularly also write "could of" when they mean "could have". Both issues seem to be incurable.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  13:03, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't think that JPs have "magical powers." I just think that, in the UK, they are typically called "Justices of the Peace". Martinevans123 (talk) 13:36, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Doesn't matter. See WP:COMMONSTYLE. If we did what "most" publications do, WP would read only and entirely like a low-end local newspaper. WP is not written in news style, which does tend to overcapitalize various things, though the trend is also declining in that sector, with certain conservative holdouts, like the house style manuals of The Economist (UK) and The New York Times. But it's not about a head-count, like 140 souces for versus 172 against; it's about prevailing style in formal publication, especially book publishing, when there is one. For this, the prevailing style has shifted to lower case for such titles when not used as name prefixes.

I didn't say anything about JPs having magical powers. Rather, there is a certain kind mysticism surrounding government "officialness" that in many people's minds translates into "capitalize everything" even though there is no rationale for doing so. A job title is a job title. There's a near universal convention to treat full formal titles (Queen of England, President of the United States) of heads of state as proper names when used before or after but definitely with their name (but "the power a king of England could wield was greatly reduced after the Magna Carta") WP follows that convention and probably should continue to do so. It also typically applies to their deputy leaders, and to heads the main national agencies/ministries/departments, while capitalization has been dropping off below that level. Regardless, "justice of the peace" is clearly a common-noun phrase, like "appellate judge", "member of Congress" or "minister of Parliament" when not prefixed to names. Even those bodies would not be capitalized if used as common nouns, e.g. "a conference of members of the parliaments of 12 Commonwealth countries". Here "Commonwealth", like "Congress", is being used as a shortened proper name for a specific body; it would be lower case in a construction like "several US states were actually constituted as commonwealths". The gist: If it can be lower-cased for a rational reason, and numerous sources do lower-case it, then do so on Wikipedia; capitalize only if RS usage does so with remarkable consistency, as it does with something like the formal "Prime Minister of the United Kingdom" as a title (but not a description: "Margaret Thatcher was a prime minister of the United Kingdom in the late 20th century" versus "Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990." See the distinction?
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  15:49, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Am I reading you correctly SMcCandlish, these sentences, "John Quincy Adams served as the sixth President of the United States from 1825 to 1829" and "A United States presidential transition is the transfer of federal executive branch power from the incumbent President of the United States to the president-elect" are correctly capitalized? Also, would "John Doe served as Secretary of 'X' in the Obama Administration" be correct? Cheers. Drdpw (talk) 18:16, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

@Drdpw: Seems it should be lower-case in the Adams example, too, since the office/title is being addressed there as a count (common) noun, a general class in which Adams was no. 6. It's basically indistinguishable from "Thatcher was a British prime minister". Real-world style guides vary on this stuff, as they do on just about everything. Some would capitalize "President of the United States" at every occurrence in proximity to a name, others (mostly quite old ones) would do it every time an office that "high" was mentioned. What I'm suggesting is to pick a rule, explain it, and stick to it. I'm also suggesting to pick a rule that balances the principle of least surprise with minimizing capitalization as much as we can, since that combination will be most consistent with both the rest of MOS:CAPS and with the largest number of off-WP style guides and publications that have a general-audience readership [The New York Times notwithstanding; its editorial board prides itself on being a hold-out against language change, and intentionally uses a mid-20th-century manner, e.g. referring to anyone on second+ mention as "Mr. Obama", among other archaisms NYT insists on].

I suspect that only ever capitalizing such titles when immediately before, never after, a name will be too restrictive for many editors. I don't think anyone's head will explode, however, given a rule that when the office/title is presented as a category with members ("a prime minister of X", "the Yth president of Z", then do not capitalize, but that is is OK to capitalize before/after a name when the title is used singularly and is either a head of state or a rank immediately below that (thus "Doe was Secretary of Foo under the Smith administration" [it's not necessary to capitalize "administration", and we avoid "served" per WP:WTW], but "Doe was an Kerblachistan secretary of foo (in the Smith administration) and parliamentarian (for two terms), as well as an author and law professor."

An argument can be made that any time the full, formal title is given (for such a position – not for something like "assistant manager of McDonalds #4942" or "professor of psychology"), that it can be capitalized, e.g. "Does was Secretary of Foo of the Republic of Kerblachistan (in the Smith administration), and Member of Parliament for Greater Elboniatown (for two terms), as well as an author and law professor", and thus also "John Quincy Adams was the sixth President of the United States, from 1825 to 1829" [the comma in that is required, since that timespan did not have six+ presidents]. However, I think this needlessly complicates things, and borders on WP:CREEP. The simpler the rule the better, the less capitalization the better. Following increasingly common practice, we shouldn't capitalize the more everyday job titles at all ("MacGoopleSoft's managing director Chris Zheng"), only a) those of high office, when used singularly and directly juxtaposed with the name (before or after), and b) those that are conventionally used as name-parts in English, when actually used as name parts (Dr. Angel Garcia, Professor Fran O'Boyle, Rev. Sam M'tumbe, etc., but never "Vice-president of Public Relations Alex Peplous" [note it's harder to parse when it's a long string of capitalized things - what if Alex's name was Charity?]).

Maybe we should come up with a table.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:03, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

If official sources use "Justice of the Peace" I don't see how that makes WP "read entirely like a low-end local newspaper". If The Daily Mirror wants to copy this style, that's up to them. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:14, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

See WT:Manual of Style/FAQ#Specialised, and WP:SSF. WP is not written in Government Style for Official Government People, it's written in encyclopedic style, for everyone, following WP's own style manual, based on mainstream style manuals, not particular governmental house style sheets. The "official" sources don't even use this capitalisation consistently, so there is no "standard" here to argue for. It's just a habit of writing in government publications for a government audience, not dissimilar to the habit of doctors writing prescriptions that no one can understand but other medical professionals, or journal articles about archaeology being too obtuse in use of specialist language for the average person to follow in any detail, or Star Wars blogs and wikis being so full of jargon and in-universe references that they sound like nonsense to anyone not deeply steeped in that subculture. They all have one thing in common: it's not encyclopedic writing for a general audience.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:17, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Peter coxhead: Oh, I quite agree that the whole "source the MoS, and use the most common style" thing cannot be re-opened. What a disruptive mess that was (resulting in at least three page deletions or user-spacings, and had a lot to do with a topic ban that later became an indef block). But some kind of clarification needs to be done to this section. MoS's default with regard to capital letters is to prefer lower case when in doubt (i.e., when sources are not consistent), and only go with upper case if sources overwhelmingly consistently do it that way (and other style guides also recommend this approach, including Chicago Manual of Style and Garner's Modern English Usage; it's known as "down style", and WP did not invent it). So it really doesn't come down to "can you find more than one source that doesn't capitalize?" The real question is "do virtually all RS capitalize this?" But somehow this is being lost in translation, and people keep capitalizing job titles like mad, and sometimes mis-citing MoS as if it says this is okay, when it indicates the opposite. The only explanation for this seems to be that a copyedit is needed.

Aside: There isn't really a clear distinction between style and content here or in most style manuals, since "style" almost always includes various content matters, like wording choices, register/tone, presence or absence of particular elements or kinds thereof, "national" dialect differences some of which are even at the grammar level, etc., etc. We label them all "style" just to have one bucket to put them in, but they're not really all the same thing, just more toward the form/display/output side of the spectrum than the function/substance/input one. I remember some freakout around 2014 where someone tried to delete something content-ish from MoS, with the refrain "this is a style guideline not a content guideline!" and getting nowhere. In another case, Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists used to be an MoS page, but because an entire section of it was pure content and another pure style, it was just moved to be a generic {{Guideline}}, with separate content guideline and style guideline tags in the sections. The same should probably be done at WP:CITE and a few other pages (mostly topical ones that combine a style guide and naming convention), but there's probably too much territoriality going on for anything that logical to be done any time soon. Anyway, I think the more technical MoS pages like MOS:NUM, MOS:ACCESSIBILITY, and the draft MOS:ORGANISMS have been pretty good at using sources for content-related facts, like real-world standards and specifications consensus has decided to treat as authoritative, while studiously avoiding any implication that WP needs a "source" to come to consensus on which of various mostly arbitrary quotation punctuation styles to use (much less that it is somehow prohibited from using the only one that is not arbitrary but exists for accuracy), or which of various arbitrary preposition casing styles to use for titles of works, and all the other matters that differ wildly from style manual to style manual. I really hope we are well past any confusion on that point, since the "WP's own internal guidelines must be sourced like articles" nonsense was intensely time-sucking and counter to both policy and reason.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  13:03, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

As the case of the new discussion of the spelling of old master shows, the first line of MOS:CAPS also needs much stronger wording. Instead of starting out by saying Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization, we need something saying that Wikipedia does not use capitalization unless it is considered obligatory the most common spelling by most dictionaries or almost all style guides.

Almost all WP editors have a completely wrong idea of how modern dictionaries are compiled and don't understand that they are based on modern scientific principles, i.e. linguistics, and are therefore based on reporting the current stage of language development (including but not limited to specialist literature), not personal whims or house styles of their editors and publishers. --Espoo (talk) 09:15, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

@Espoo: yes, dictionaries are based on reporting language as it is used in the ENGVARs they cover, not as it is used in the dictionary's house style. But all this shows is that dictionaries aren't a style guide, and don't consider anything obligatory. Setting out what is obligatory or optional is what style guides do. Wikipedia is like any other publication: it uses capitalization based on its style guide. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:20, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead:, yes, i know all that and i expressed myself sloppily. But the point is that our policy needs much stronger wording. We need tomsay that we simply don't use capitalization unless the term is capitalized in most dictionaries. More specifically, we don't capitalize as soon as some major dictionaries of more than one ENGVAR don't capitalize. This is enough proof that the term doesn't need to be capitalized. Even if some or several dictionaries do capitalize the term, we don't capitalize it as soon as at least some dictionaries don't. To put it even more bluntly, it's OK and correct to cherry pick for evidence of lowercase spelling because our MOS has lowercase as the preferred choice except when capitalization is necessary. Such cherry picking should apply only to dictionaries, not to to other secondary sources unless they consist of a similar analysis of common usage that is not restricted to specialist literature (such as dictionaries carry out). We need to give the huge databases and professionalism behind dictionaries a much greater role in reducing unnecessary fighting and time-consuming senseless discussions. --Espoo (talk) 22:11, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

@Espoo: I think that fundamentally we agree, but I don't think you are correctly identifying the role of the MOS. It's the MOS that directly determines our house style, not dictionaries. "Most major dictionaries capitalizing in a particular case" → "MOS saying capitalize in that case" → "articles capitalizing in that case". Bypassing the MOS by going from what most major dictionaries report to what should be done in articles will definitely lead to cherry-picking, as well as re-opening the perennial issue of whether articles in a given ENGVAR should follow major dictionaries of that ENGVAR, where ENGVARs differ. To repeat myself: article styling is determined by the MOS; the MOS should be grounded in appropriate reliable sources of style information, including style manuals and major dictionaries, although not slavishly following any of them. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:45, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Article titles by name and caps

I had made this little addition, because on some occasions I wanted to refer to the MOS, but I couldn't find a pointer. My edit was reverted by user Mandruss ([2]), asking for examples.

Going back a decade, I found these edits of mine: [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11] (on talk page), [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20].

That was a good call, Mandruss, as going through my history helped me refresh my memory. For instance in the edit summary of this edit, I added a pointer to WP:MOS#Wikilinks, where under the header Initial capitalization we express it explicitly. Thanks for the hint in your edit summary! - DVdm (talk) 15:52, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

@DVdm: Ok, you surprised me and satisfied my request. Therefore I will now move the goalposts. 1. If this MOS advice had been present, how many of those errors do you think would have been avoided? I'm thinking not many, since people make MOS errors constantly. 2. How many of your fixes were disputed? I'm guessing zero, or maybe 1. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:59, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

No argument there. I just like to add such pointers in my edit summaries to avoid disputes . Cheers - DVdm (talk) 16:06, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

@DVdm: I just now ran across the error in the first sentence at this article. I would think MOS advice like you propose would make that problem worse, since many average editors would be unable to make the distinction. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:07, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

@Mandruss: for an example of pharmacy related occupations, see Pharmacist . - DVdm (talk) 17:16, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

@DVdm: You might be able to make the distinction clear enough for the average editor. Even so, is it worth the creep? Let's see What Others Think. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:22, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Formatting a last name with a lowercase letter

I've been writing an article using the name Jan de Bont, which is properly spelled with a lowercase "d". But when just referring to him by last name, should it be formatted "de Bont" or "De Bont" in the middle of a sentence? –Dream out loud (talk) 20:32, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

The Dutch would use a capital "D" in that situation, or (rarely) omit the "de". However, I'm not sure the English Wikipedia would follow that usage. Lower case "d" seems widely used. It's definitely the only way for German "von", and probably also for French "de". -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:29, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

With Dutch, de, van der, and such are always lowercase, and are usually not dropped (though alphabetization would generally by base on just the main name part). Sometimes Americanized Dutch names get caps though. At start of sentence, cap it. Dicklyon (talk) 03:37, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

No, "de Bont" mid-sentence is spelled "De Bont" in Dutch; see Tussenvoegsel & van (Dutch), and its usage at nl:Jan de Bont. I don't think this is widely used in English. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:46, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Interesting if true. I agree this is not widely done in English. Dicklyon (talk) 07:37, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Does anybody know what the academic standards are on this (i.e. APA style, MLA style)? –Dream out loud (talk) 08:15, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't follow academic standards on capitalization at all, though, since these prescribe capitalizing, in a title or headline, major words (Chicago style), major words or those with four or more letters, (MLA), or major words or those with five or more letters (APA). So Wikipedia is an entirely made up style that doesn't conform to any guidelines given by any existing organization. Who made up this silly system? There is no style guide we can turn to advice, since Wikipedia just made up its own from scratch, which avoids the principles used by all prior style guides. 24.188.103.14 (talk) 08:41, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

As a long-time editor, I'm well-aware Wikipedia doesn't use academic standards. But they are definitely influenced by them indirectly, which is why I asked. With that aside, is there a chance we could make the above an official guideline at MOS:NAMECAPS? –Dream out loud (talk) 16:12, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Which part of "the above"? If you mean the Dutch convention to capitalise "de" mid-sentence, I don't see much support for that in English usage. It's not unusual for some aspects of spelling in foreign languages not to be followed in English. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:15, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Academic and other style and grammar guides are all the map, which is why WP's MOS draws on a bunch of them and work out our own house style by consensus. Most of our provisions are very close to what you'll find in various of those other guides; Chicago may be closest. But as the IP points out, we don't use "title case" for titles (except for composition titles, that is, titles made up by others). By using "sentence case" for article titles, we allow article title links to work in sentences, rather than having to have elaborate case-insensitivity rules or redirects for links in sentences. Dicklyon (talk) 03:40, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

I asked my friend van der Beek about this, and she said she had never heard of the idea that she should capitalize the van in such contexts, either in Dutch or in English; she's from Holland, residing in the US. I'll ask van der Heijden in a few weeks when I see him, and see what he knows about this; he still lives in Holland, or somewhere on that side of the pond. Dicklyon (talk) 05:08, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm from the Dutch speaking part of Belgium, about 10% the population of which having a name starting with van—including me. It's almost always mid-sentence capitalised. I estimate that about 50% of last names starting with "de" are spelled as "De". As for "Jan de Bont" or "Jan De Bont", it just depends on what's on his birth certificate, identity card or driver's licence. Without access to that, check the subject's own website, or the literature (eg. Google Books). New York Magazine spells it as "Jan De Bont", as do some others, but it looks like "Jan de Bont" is more common. I guess the bottom line is that there is no rule on this. - DVdm (talk) 10:38, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

According to van (Dutch) and https://onzetaal.nl/taaladvies/hoofdletters-in-namen-patsy-van-der-meeren-patsy-van-der-meeren, the Belgians do it indeed differently – they capitalise "Van" and "De" even if the full name is used (nl:Margot De Ridder, Koen De Bouw), as do the Americans, so that spelling of genuine Dutch names in American publications is understandable. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:42, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

(disclosure: Dutch-language Belgian, i.e. Flemish) Indeed; however that's not all the differences. Here's an example of how complicated it can get – take a Belgian, who decides to move to the Netherlands, there working for an international organisation (which is the lion share of their notability):

• As a Belgian: Chris(tine) Van den Wyngaert; In prose not preceded by first name: Van den Wyngaert; Sorted by last name as Vandenwyngaert, Chris(tine)
• In the Netherlands: Chris(tine) van den Wyngaert; In prose not preceded by first name: Van den Wyngaert; Sorted by last name as Wyngaert, Chris(tine) van den
• Within the international organisation (where the lingua franca is English): Christine Van Den Wyngaert; In prose not preceded by first name: Van Den Wyngaert; sorted by last name as Van Den Wyngaert, Christine

(the article is currently at Chris van den Wyngaert) --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:08, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

And even then there's no rule, as I am a "Van de mxxx" on my birth certificate, with lower case "d" and ditto "m" - DVdm (talk) 12:14, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Capitalization of articles about volcanic arcs

Wikipedia has a set of articles about volcanic arcs that have inconsistent capitalization in their title. Examples of such articles include Izu-Bonin-Mariana Arc, Northeastern Japan arc, Cascade Volcanoes. We are discussing the correct capitalization at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geology#Should Arc be capitalized in fault names?, but haven't reached consensus. Feel free the join in the discussion. —hike395 (talk) 06:32, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Capitalization of a list of military ranks held

I started a discussion at [[21]] about capitalizing every military rank that a person held. This is after my partial cleanup of the list was reverted. The MoS specification of "being used generically" does not seem to be easily understood by at least one editor. If anyone can clarify? Chris the speller ^yack 14:42, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Resolved

At least it looks that way for now. Chris the speller ^yack 20:50, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

RfC - please comment on discussion: Is it "The Gambia" or "the Gambia" in the middle of a sentence

Please comment on discussion here: Is it "The Gambia" or "the Gambia" in the middle of a sentence. —አቤል ዳዊት^?(Janweh64) (talk) 03:06, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Capitalization of job titles in NASA

Please see the discussion at Talk:Payload Specialist#Capitalization, where an editor takes "used generically" and reads more into it than was intended. I think we may need to tighten up the MoS. Chris the speller ^yack 06:10, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Discussions of capitalization of military ranks at Template:Infobox military person

An editor at Template talk:Infobox military person wants to uppercase "Brigadier general" to "Brigadier General" when it is used as a rank without being followed by a person's name, and thinks that this MoS backs him up. Again, do we need to tweak/expand the MoS to make it clearer? Chris the speller ^yack 14:01, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

• That editor is me and I think we probably do. And for the records, we´re speaking about the case when it is not part of a sentence but on its own like within said infobox or in tables. ...GELongstreet (talk)
  • Agreed. It's a formal title and should be capitalized. If the MoS doesn't support that, it should, and someone should just go change it. I learned from some admins here awhile ago that anyone can re-write the MoS to anything they like, anytime they please without any consensus or even discussion. Pretty handy actually, being able to do whatever the fuck you like. Cheers, fellas... carry on. - ^theWOLFchild 18:29, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

I believe that the following commentary is consistent both with Wikipedia's style standards and most style standards in the English-speaking world. Ranks are only capitalized when directly preceding the rank-holder's name as his or her title (e.g., Brigadier General John Jones) or when used in addressing that person (e.g., "Good morning, General," which is really just a shortening of "Good morning, [Brigadier] General Jones." All other usages are "generic": The name of the rank is not a proper noun on its own, any more than the names of other jobs or positions (manager, team lead, employee, worker, writer, secretary, assistant, linesman, firefighter, technician, etc.). Even a U.S. Navy style manual (http://www.navy.mil/submit/navyStyleGuide.pdf) affirms this, even though military, government, and other bureaucratic organizations are the worst offenders when it comes to what I call hyper-capitalization. Here is an excerpt: "civilian titles - Use full name and title or job description on first reference. Capitalize the title or job description when it precedes an individual’s name and do not use a comma to separate it from the name. Lower case titles when they follow the name or when not accompanied by one." Another excerpt: "titles - Capitalize titles when used before a name only. See titles entry in AP Stylebook." See also the usage of terms of rank throughout the guide.

As for infoboxes and tables, it seems that Wikipedia's standard is to use sentence case, not title case (browse several pages in diverse fields, and this is easy to see). Since titles used generically are not to be capitalized, and infoboxes and tables do not use title case, then titles should be in sentence case when they appear therein. Holy (talk) 17:00, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Problem solved [22]. Cinderella157 (talk) 23:52, 16 March 2017 (UTC)