Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (capitalization)/Archive 3

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Request for comment (former)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result was: RFC didn't live up to its purpose. Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 02:23, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

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I found out the debate about WikiProject Birds' capitalization on WT:CAPS is not in a situation to reach a consensus. The debate has too little input and one of the supporters has appeared to have heavily disrupted that discussion.

The question is: are WikiProject Birds' capitalization rules okay or do they violate certain policies and guidelines? Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 11:59, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

• The capitalization scheme favored by WikiProject Birds is in direct conflict with many basic Wikipedia policies and guidelines about article titles. I understand their desire to follow the capitalization conventions of the IOC, but this specialists' approach is inappropriate for a general encyclopedia. I appreciate the contributions of that WikiProject and its members, but I hope they will see the value of consistent adherence to our greater policies and guidelines. --BDD (talk) 20:32, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Please note: This is a separate question than the dispute over the wording above of the convention. My dispute, at least, is only over the accuracy of the convention, not its wisdom, which is the subject of this RfC. Apteva (talk) 21:07, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization. Most capitalization is for proper names or for acronyms and initialisms. Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is a proper name; words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in sources are treated as proper names and capitalized in Wikipedia.

• A certain guideline, specifically MOS:CAPS conflicts with itself in the opening sentences. The above quoted text is conflicting, the final sentence contradicts the first two. Wikipedia does not use capitalisation because sources use capitals or consistently use capitalisation. Capitals are used for proper names because that is the convention in the written English language for proper names. A source that always uses capitalisation on a sets of names does not says at all what is a proper name - and obviously so. I have sympathy with WP Birds because MOS:CAPS has been a mess ever since I can remember. There is an over reliance among editors to use sources(and amend guidelines accordingly) and throw logic out the window. Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 23:01, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Specialist sources are irrelevant for a general encyclopedia. Wikipedia generally uses non-specialist sources. Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 11:33, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

That's a serious mis-statement. Specialist sources are essential, for facts about the topics they specialize in (e.g. what the actual common name of a bird species is). Specialist sources are less relevant than generalist ones when it comes to matters of style, spelling and grammar (e.g. capitalization); here, specialist sources are simply added to the pile of sources we look at, like newspapers, dictionaries, etc. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 12:57, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

And there are frequently cases of conflicting reliable sources. If I were to make a suggestion it would be to use the actual name of the bird in the Infobox, in captions, and in article titles of that species name, and use lower case in cases where the meaning does not become ambiguous otherwise. That should be a simple enough rule to follow. Apteva (talk) 21:23, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it's kind of headache-inducing. The rule that MOS already has (don't capitalize common names of species) is the simple one. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 12:59, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

If this is adopted, I would add to WP:Birds that there is no haste to go back and edit articles that used a different convention, and that it is better to spend time adding to knowledge than simply correcting controversial capitalizations, and that in no case should someone who is not a member of project birds correct the capitalization within an ornithology article, other than fixing obvious errors such as eaStErn roBiN. Just as in unifying reference styles, it is appropriate when edits are made to fix the whole article, such as using a uniform reference style, for the sake of consistency, and it is the expectation that each ornithology article will eventually follow this convention, of using Snowy Owl for the title and infobox, and snowy owl within the text of the article, other than the first sentence: "The Snowy Owl (Bubo scandiacus) is a large owl of the typical owl family Strigidae. The snowy owl is commonly found in the northern circumpolar region, and is the official bird of Quebec." Apteva (talk) 21:47, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Some good sentiments here. I'm not saying all bird names need to be changed overnight, nor would I delegate that task to the WikiProject. And personally, I have no problems with IOC capitalization in the bolded mention in the lede, as above. It's a compromise, if a weak one. --BDD (talk) 15:09, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

I suggest closing this RFC as moved to WP:Birds and propose that compromise there. (use actual name in the bold name, infobox, and captions, and lower case in articles other than where the meaning would be unclear) The reason for that is it does not affect this convention, only the convention on bird names, which is not here. Apteva (talk) 03:22, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I am concerned about it offending people who know a lot about birds to have someone who knows nothing about birds coming in and editing thousands of articles just to change capitalization, and even worse having a bot do that. Apteva (talk) 03:26, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I support the proposal of "Snowy Owl" at first mention, then "snowy owl" after that, as it seems to be an okay compromise. It does fit for a situation like this. However, that deals with the names of the animals, not the article titles. Even though the problem in running text would be solved, disputes will still continue about the titles of the bird articles. Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 14:11, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Other than the incorrect use of "actual" there (the "actual name" is not the same as the "Title Cased Name" or the "jargon name" -- the actual name of the snowy owl is snowy owl just as much as it is Snowy Owl), there's also the problem of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS: the birds project area is not the correct forum for discussion of guidelines or policies that are intended for Wikipedia generally. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:19, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

When someone uses "snowy owl" they are using an actual name that is used to refer to an actual bird that actually has a species name, and that species name is actually "Snowy Owl" and whatever the scientific name is. As the result of this RfC will not result in any edits to this convention but will affect edits to another page, it seems appropriate to locate the RfC on the talk page of the page that will be affected, with a mention of the RfC here, as well as elsewhere, such as VPP. The place to put non capitalization of bird names in other article names outside of ornithology is not in the section on animals but in the section on "Page names that only differ by capitalization". Add an example there such as: an article which is a list of stories about Easter Bunnies, kangaroos, and snowy owls would have a redirect from "Stories about easter bunnies, Kangaroos and Snowy Owls", if it seems likely to be needed to avoid redlinks. But really, how often is that going to come up, and does it really need to be in the convention? The purpose of a convention is not to make editors follow it, but to let editors know what is normally done, so that we can have a more uniform style. Most editors are always looking for the right way to add material, whatever that is. If there is only one article in the entire encyclopedia that uses a bird name that is not capitalized is it really necessary to put that into a convention? And if there are no articles at all? But by all means add it as an example if it adds clarity. Apteva (talk) 17:55, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

By the way, the reason for having the RfC on the talk page of the affected article or guideline, etc. is because years later someone is going to come along and say I wonder why this is worded like this, and will check the talk page, and if the discussion is elsewhere it is very hard to find. Apteva (talk) 17:58, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• I don't know if they violate any guidelines or policies. Wikipedia:LOCALCONSENSUS is a policy that might be relevant, although I suppose it could be argued that we don't have consensus here about capping bird names one way or another, so the "local consensus" at BIRDS isn't overriding anything. In any case, it is probably not a good idea for wikiprojects to override the MOS on matters of style. Bird species names—like other species names—are capitalized in lots of ways in sentence case: "Bald Eagle", "bald eagle", even "Bald eagle". All by very knowledgeable people. All three of these, and I don't know possibly others, are legitimate styles. They are all correct. I would argue, however, that within a particular work, such as a book, or a project like Wikipedia, the same style ought to be adopted across the work in order to confer a certain level of professionalism that comes with a consistent style. It's not the end of the world if we don't do this, but it does have its advantages. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:50, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

• I support putting the project's rules into the MOS (and making them the standard for bird articles). The current standard is fine overall, but there are always special cases. Since we seem to have identified one, let's fix our guidelines accordingly. --Nouniquenames 13:55, 7 October 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose: This is the wrong venue for trying to change the MoS; WT:MOS has already declined to come to a consensus to add such a messy proposition as part of the Manual of Style; and MoS already has an explicit standard to not capitalize species common names, as does WP:NCFauna. This is just yet another attempt by a vocal minority at WP:BIRDS to game the system by "asking the other parent". Site-wide consensus has been against this entire idea since at least 2008, if not 2004. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 13:04, 14 October 2012 (UTC)
• As pointed out in previous discussions, the editors of bird articles have explained why they think that bird names are an exception to the general rules of species names. The guideline has provided an exception for birds for years. Someone has explained how the guidelines have evolved over the years until it has reached the current situation. All bird names have been capitalized for many years. The exception for birds has survived all the changes because it has strong support among the people who actually write the bird articles and among ornithology sources. The arguments for change come from a different group of editors, who argue that all species names should be lowercased, with no exceptions. No group has a sufficiently strong argument to fully counter the arguments from the other group and stop the constant repetitive discussions. And lowercasing all bird names would require a level of consensus that we don't currently have, and it would make several valuable bird editors leave wikipedia. I don't see any violation of guidelines anywhere in this situation, what guideline is being violated and how?? Also note that "wikipedia is not based in specialist sources" is based only on the WP:SPECIALSTYLE essay, and that "specialist" sources aren't mentioned anywhere in our policies or guidelines (mainly because we don't have a good definition of what a "specialist" source is, and we can't discuss this rule until we know what sources are being excluded by it). So, following "specialist" sources over "non-specialist" is not a violation of any policy or guideline, and it can't even be evaluated until we have a good definition of "specialist". The guideline says "Wikipedia relies on sources (...)" and some editors opinate that only non-specialist sources count, as if the guideline said "Wikipedia relies on specialist sources (...)" Thus, they interpret that using specialists sources is a violation of the guideline. This interpretation is recent and it doesn't seem to appear in any guideline or policy. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:46, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Give it a rest

This topic has been discussed AD NAUSEAM for years. If you actually take the time to read the hundreds of pages of prior discussion, you'll find that there is no way to move forward. Here's the bottom line: bird people know how to deal with birds. Give it a rest already, and devote your efforts to something that isn't divisive. You'll accomplish more. If this change is forced upon the birds project, Wikipedia will no longer be considered (by most bird people: a large majority of people who access the bird articles) a legitimate source on birds, and both contributors and users will flee en masse. Any source that does not capitalize bird names is immediately viewed as amateur. This is not intended as a threat, but rather, a statement of fact. Natureguy1980 (talk) 21:47, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

• Nonsense. Specialist choices are irrelevant for what Wikipedia is (a general encyclopedia). Also, you really mocked Wikipedia there, which is not nice. Worse, you tried to sensationalize the consequences of names. Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 21:58, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
• Wikipedia isn't a crystal ball, so you'll never know what will happen. Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 22:02, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Where on heavens did you get this idea? Wikipedia relies in reliable sources, and many times the specialist sources are the most reliable ones. When editing an article about a historical event, I would never choose a generalist newspaper article over a specialist book that examined the event in detail. Please stop repeating this idea. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:05, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing your excellently thought-out and well-expressed opinions on what constitutes mocking. I'll be sure to consider them and reevaluate what "mock" means; you've opened my eyes. Natureguy1980 (talk) 22:05, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the sarcasm. :[3] (my emoticon for laughing) Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 22:27, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

You misinterpret my remarks. I obviously have a very different concept of what constitutes mocking and fully intend to research the matter. Natureguy1980 (talk) 22:40, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

See WP:DISCUSSED (and for that matter, WP:THREATS right below). If the bird community rejects Wikipedia because of how we capitalize names rather than the content of our coverage... well, suffice to say, it will be their loss. --BDD (talk) 22:15, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

You just accused me of making a legal threat (when no threat of any kind was made), and I demand a full apology. Natureguy1980 (talk) 22:34, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I do apologize; I used the wrong shortcut, and it was a bad mistake to make. That should have read WP:THREATEN (which indeed links to the section below WP:DISCUSSED). --BDD (talk) 23:13, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I appreciate the civility. Please allow me to also apologize if you think I made a threat in any way, but I do not believe I did, and that was not my intent. That's why went out of my way to say "This is not intended as a threat..." It's simply what I see as the logical outcome, and I anticipated someone would say I was making a threat. Natureguy1980 (talk) 23:15, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Yea, too bad for them. And I publicised the RFC and got little input. Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 22:30, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

It's because people like you come along and refight this war every 2 months. Most people are too smart to waste their time and take your bait. Discussing something every couple years is one thing: relitigating it every 2 months is exhausting. I, and many other bird contributors, am at my wit's end dealing with your attempts to overturn our established policy. More than one excellent editor has given up on Wikipedia because of this. Natureguy1980 (talk) 22:34, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

No no no. I just recently joined this discussion (it's the others that are refighting, not me!). Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 19:23, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

• There seems to be someone starting a discussion about bird name capitalisation every two weeks. Surely, we do not have to do this again. As far as I can see, the discussion on the topic has been exhausted and there is no need to discus it again. Snowman (talk) 22:57, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

agreed. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:08, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

The discussion wants to move up to the general issue of whether sources determines capitalization or whether style guidelines determine capitalisation then whatever is decided wants to be unambiguously stated on MOS:CAPS then specifics can be dealt with. Current discussion will go around and around and be fruitless while the general issue remains unresolved. Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 23:25, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Huh? Natureguy1980 (talk) 02:50, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

(inserted reply) The answer to that generalized question is simple... Normally we should follow the MOS. However, in cases where the sources indicate that an exception should be made, we should follow the sources. 18:43, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm also fed up with the constant drip-drip of criticism by people who seem to have nothing better to do than impose uniformity on everything in sight. While Signpost runs an article on how we are driving new editors away, the folk here seem to want to extend that to driving established editors away. Some have already given up commenting on this persistent dispute, where people just ignore all the previous discussions and start again until we are too worn down, and they finally get their way. I know, let's make it compulsory to standardise spelling as British English too, that achieves the aim of discouraging good editors better than this pointless intervention! Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:02, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Don't you think the entire rest of the encyclopedia is tired of the WTF-WTF of your ungrammatical-to-everyone-but-ornithologists editing and the CLANG-CLANG of your project's eight years straight of sabre-rattling? The idea that editors will actually quit Wikipedia over a capitalization issue, especially academic editors, is utterly absurd (a few may leave in a huff but will return after their mood and priorities sort themselves out). Remember, these are the very same academics who must adjust and follow very, very nit-picky style rules that vary in wide and weird ways from journal to journal every single time they submit a paper. You know as well as I do that Nature, Science and all other (with, so far, one discovered exception) non-ornithology journals refuse to accept capitalization of bird species common names even in ornithology articles. This is not at all about what academic ornithologists acting as expert Wikipedia editors are and are not willing to tolerate, and it never has been. It's about winning against "conformists", because some dozen or so people in your project have become more concerned about their pride and about inappropriately enforcing an academic convention on a general encyclopedia than adapting academic material in an encyclopedic way for the world's most generalist audience. These priorities are sorely bassackwards. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 13:53, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

• I'm sympathetic. Really, I am. I don't want to see productive editors leave over this, but I also don't want to see policies and guidelines hijacked over it. I hate WP:USPLACE, but it's not going to make me leave the encyclopedia. I know I'm biased, but I can only see this ending one way. As long as bird names are capitalized the way they are, dozens of editors like me will innocently think there's a mistake, make an RM, and often get energized about the issue. It must be frustrating for the project to see the issue raised so often, but please understand that it's not a bunch of grunting, unwashed masses not knowing what's right—it's that bird name capitalization is a major exception to a basic Wikipedia convention, so many people are going to perceive it as an error.

Maybe I shouldn't say that. There is another way to solve the issue. Build consensus for the WikiProject's current practice and get it enshrined as a policy or a guideline. That wouldn't please everyone, but it would invalidate the main argument of those opposed to the status quo. That's more the point I want to make: the issue should be solved by a broader discussion, formation of consensus, and the "losing" side accepting this and moving on. I could do that if consensus didn't go my way. Could you? --BDD (talk) 16:47, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

This already happened in 2008. MoS has said not to capitalize species common names since then. Certain parties have refused to move on. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 13:53, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I would move on, but I suspect it would be completely away from Wikipedia. Please forgive this admittedly awkward analogy, but isn't opening up this convention to a vote by the entire editorship (who will undoubtedly quash the status quo) rather akin to letting to letting a majority vote on the rights of a minority they know little if anything about (e.g., gay marriage, banning headscarves, etc.)? Natureguy1980 (talk) 20:11, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Another aside: 1) No, because this isn't about birds, it's about encyclopedic style. 2) Even if it were, so what? Gay marriage is being approved in more and more places the more the issue is put before the people instead of left in the hand of ivory-tower politicians. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 13:53, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

I still think that WikiProject Birds is still violating policies (just look at the above discussion!) with its capitalization. For example, that means that brown bear should be moved to Brown Bear,for exactly the same reasons as the capitalization rules at WikiProject Birds dictate! Hmph. Also, it's unacceptable that policy be changed because of one plain WikiProject. Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 20:29, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Except that most species other than birds and fish only capitalize the first word - the species name is "Brown bear", which is what we use anyway just because we use sentence capitalization. Apteva (talk) 21:10, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

AFS/ASIH decided to capitalize fish common names, but no one else does, and the practice has no legitimate traction in Wikipedia (if its happening, it needs to stop). Many real-world ichthyologists are on record as opposing the practice, and it remains controversial. Apteva is misstating the case for fish caps, with the effect if not the intent of making bird caps look more reasonable. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 18:53, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

This is not an isolated wikiproject against the rest of wkiprojects. This is a wikiproject that has decided to resist to pressures from MOS regulars. All breed names for horses, dogs and cats were capitalized in wikipedia, until a small number of vocal MOS editors decided to edit-war those provisions out of the MOS and out of the relevant naming guidelines. Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(flora) still says that there is no consensus regarding the capitalization of plant names.

Oh, and the fauna naming guidelines gives "Black bear" as a correct example of a common (vernacular) name. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:23, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

"Brown bear" wouldn't be title-cased like that in the middle of a sentence, though. You're misreading NCFauna. And NCFlora does not say that at all; it says that the wikiproject on flora never came to a consensus about it; MOS did, sitewide, instead, and did so largely because projects couldn't come to consensus! As to your first point, it's just "revolution vs. rebellion" semantics. Every policy page on the system is generated and maintained by "regulars" at that page - there is no "wiki-draft" that presses editors into service to edit particular policy pages. Any time WP:BIRDS are fond of something, like their own essay on capitalization that no one else on the system agrees with, they try to label it a naming convention or style guideline – a piece of WP policy in the broad sense – while any time they don't like something, such as MOS (one of the most-watchlisted pages on the entire system) saying "don't capitalize", they say it's just a conspiracy of "regulars". Surely you recognize this as a total-bollocks double standard? PS: No one would care about "an isolated wikiproject against the rest of the wikiprojects", since wikiprojects do not set policy. What we actually have here is a handful of vocal "regulars" (since you like to use that word pejoratively) at WP:BIRDS, who do not in fact represent the rest of that project in their willingness to politicize and militarize over this issue, against site-wide consensus at WP:MOS and WP:NCFauna. Per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, the guidelines necessarily win out over the quirks of the wikiproject. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 13:53, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

WP birds did not make up the capitalisation rules for birds. It is widely used and the rules are set out by the IOC; see Capitalization. The Wiki uses capitalisation for cities and towns, ie "London", "Stoke", "Moscow" and so on. What are the lower case enthusiasts going to do about the capitalisation of place names? Snowman (talk) 22:48, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but many editors don't care about specialists sources to determine capitalisation and thus the never ending circle of discussion. It's not about WP:BIRD, they simply defaulted to following sources as the guidelines recommends. Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 23:16, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, WP Birds have used the capitalisation for bird names used by many authorities including the IOC, IUCN, and BirdLife International. The edit on this page wikilinked above is one editors point of view and not "many editors". Snowman (talk) 08:04, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

"Chosen by authorities" does not mean "in common usage" right away. Besides, they're still irrelevant unless common usage can be dictated by other means. (I mean non-specialist sources) Also, you admitted to use specialist sources, which, right away, do not determine common usage. Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 11:44, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

"The Times of India" uses capitals for bird names showing that bird names with capitals are in common use by non-specialist sources; see this article. I just did a quick internet search of "The Times of India" and found that every time I came across an article about a bird species, they used capital letters. Snowman (talk) 16:46, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Anymore non-specialist sources? Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 13:58, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I flatly reject the premise of this argument. Let's take an extremely common bird like Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. How many "non-specialist" sources is it even mentioned in? Not many. I guarantee you that if you counted the number of times is not capitalized and compared it to the number of times it is, the latter would far outweigh the former. In other words, the "commonest usage" is literally to be capitalized. Now let's take a rare bird almost no one even knows about, like Sierra Madre Sparrow. I'd be flabbergasted to even find it listed in a "non-specialist" source. Why should we follow the convention of sources who both know nothing about and have never heard of or covered the topic at hand? Wikipedia is not a "nonspecialist" resource. If it were, we'd not have articles for every one of the 10,000+ bird species in existence. Any source that lists such an obscure bird as Peg-billed Finch, which no average person is ever going to be interested in learning about--or even going to come across, has long ago conceded its designation as a "nonspecialist" source. Natureguy1980 (talk) 20:44, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

• Blue-gray gnatcatcher: http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2012/sep/22/wildlife-clinic-call-the-clinic-before-you-evict/?citizen=1
• Sierra Madre sparrow: Linn Parish (November 24, 2004). "Bringing bird lovers to birds". Journal of Business (Spokane). Vol. 19, no. 24. p. A1. ISSN 1075-6124. it took [Michael Carmody] 12 years to find the Sierra Madre sparrow.

(I found nothing for Peg-billed Finch.) That aside, though, I think that birds that are that obscure in general sources could be Title Cased wherever their names appear. But Wikipedia is a non-specialist reference, a reference for non-specialist readers, no matter the sourcing. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:05, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

And you're misunderstanding the nature of the argument, Hillcrest98. It's not whether the blue-gray gnatcatcher is, itself, mentioned by name, in many generalist sources; rather, its whether species common names, including those of birds, are capitalized or not categorically. You're engaging in the fallacy of composition, confusing the member of the class with the class itself. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 13:53, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

• I just don't believe it. The journal Nature doesn't seem to capitalize bird names, or at least not with any consistency. "Any source that does not capitalize bird names is immediately viewed as amateur." Really? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 06:53, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

  No one but orn. journals (and virtually no other journals, even in ornithology articles!) and bird field guides capitalizes. The bird field guides, by the way, capitalized long before ornithology did, because virtually all field guides on all flora and fauna capitalize as a form of emphasis of make reading in the field easier and faster. This is the Big Lie of the pro-caps camp: They claim a united capitalizing front in both orn. science and birdwatching books, but the first assertion is false (it's only in ornithology-specific journals), and the second is pure coincidence! — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 16:38, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

• The topic has been "discussed ad nauseam for years", as you put it, because a double-handful of bird-topic editors, who do not in fact represent the views of everyone participating in WP:BIRDS, simply will not ever acknowledge that Wikipedia consensus is overwhelmingly against them, meanwhile most other Wikipedians are a) too polite to get in a big fight over the matter and have been worn down anyway, and b) too concerned that some of these holdouts' continued and vocal threats to quit Wikipedia or go on editorial strike might actually be acted upon if bird articles, like virtually all other articles, stopped capitalizing the common names of species (because WP does what most sources do, not what a few ivory tower sources do). There really is nothing more to it than that. The really sad thing is that the majority of participants in WP:BIRDS, who really are here to write articles and really couldn't care less about bird capitalization on Wikipedia (because they understand that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not an ornithology journal or bird field guide), feel put-upon and demoralized, even demonized (critics tend to say "WP:BIRDS says...", not "these few activistic editors from WP:BIRDS say..."), as a result of the militaristic determination ("capitalization warriors" is their term, remember) of those vocal, threat-making, poll-derailing holdouts. They should be ashamed of themselves for trying to turn a productive wikiproject in a wikipolitical machine and thwarting all progress on a consistent treatment of biology articles for the benefit of our general, 99.999999% non-ornithological readership and editorship for eight years running. I've only been even peripherally involved in this debate since 2008, but have amassed evidence of this program of organized, divisive "orthological fundamentalism" going back years before that. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 17:34, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Blue-gray gnatcatcher

Natureguy1980 asked "Let's take an extremely common bird like Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. How many "non-specialist" sources is it even mentioned in? Not many. I guarantee you that if you counted the number of times is not capitalized and compared it to the number of times it is, the latter would far outweigh the former. "

It's true the mentions in specialist sources, and therefore capitalized, dominate. But mentions in non-specialist sources are not rare, and make a pretty good case that the birders have not succeeded in getting their odd convention adopted outside their specialty. You find it lower case in books on forest ecology, on desert animals, on gardening, on wildlife, on insects, on Belize, on Missouri, on Wisconsin, on Florida species, on the Pacific Crest Trail, and in New Scientist mag, and some old bird magazines, and even some bird books.

It woud not be out of line with general sources for Wikipedia to apply their stated style consistently here. Dicklyon (talk) 22:00, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Be careful with blanket assertions. You can find many non-specialist books that follow IOC's convention, in topics like Sonorad desert, a natural park, Eastern Forest, Tropical Cloud Forest, Californian river-side vegetation, nature guide to Ontario, ecology of communities. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:39, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Some of these sources use fairly idiosyncratic styles that it wouldn't behoove us to use. The Sonoran Desert guide, "Eastern Forest," and the Ontario nature guide use title case for all species, the examples in the California riparian study are found in a (specialist) article within the collection, and the ecology of [bird] communities definitely sounds like a specialist source to me. I can only see less than a page of "Tropical Cloud Forest." The natural park guide seems to support IOC conventions. --BDD (talk) 18:12, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Why didn't you count them? Don't they mean that non-specialist sources don't have a single predominant style for these names? That some sources capitalize all species names while other lowercase all of them? --Enric Naval (talk) 21:03, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. Of the seven sources you cited, by my count, two support your position, two are specialist sources (you characterized all of them as non-specialist), and three use a capitalization scheme that doesn't suggest a conscious effort to follow IOC spelling. As a presentation of non-specialist books that use IOC capitalization, it's a bit shaky. --BDD (talk) 21:21, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

OK, I'm seeing a problem here. What is a "specialist" source? The current criteria seems to be "if its topic is birds, then it's useless for common usage". This means that all field guides get automatically discarded, but many are targeted to non-specialist audiences, like people who like to watch birds in the woods. Or to young people, like the The Young Birder's Guide to Birds of Eastern North America. Non-specialists interested in birds will buy this type of resources and they will always see capitalized names. For them, the common usage is to always capitalize the name. Imagine their surprise when they come to wikipedia and the articles don't follow the common usage in all sources that are about birds. We are rejecting like hundreds of books that are bought by non-specialists, only because they are "about" birds, and thus "specialist sources". I don't see how a book intended for a generalist audience, which happens to be interested in birds, can be classified as "specialist". A clearer definition of "specialist" would be necessary before discarding so many sources whose main target are not "specialists" like ornithologists and such. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:01, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I too find the distinction between specialist and non-specialist material to be pretty arbitrary and essentially unhelpful. Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:59, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

It's from WP:SSF, which identifies (and goes on too long about) an obvious, identifiable problem. But the terms employed it in are talking about general trends. There is no criterion to stamp this particular source in this particular field by this particular author in this particular context as "specialist" or not. It's the "'I'm part Irish!' 'Yeah? Which part?'" logical confusion. At this level here, the distinction is ridiculously arbitrary. At the aggregate level, it's clear and crucial (i.e. the sources WP:BIRDS considers "reliable" are all about and almost all only about birds, not language, while WP considers them all equal candidate for reliability. WP should certainly dispense with any such distinction in reality, and go with what the majority of reliable sources do, just like we always do for every topic. Which means newspapers, magazines, TV, websites, encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc. collectively bury the quirky capitalization practices of orn. journals and bird guides under a 3 orders of magnitude landslide. Basic, inescapable logic. The WP:BIRDS people know this, really. These people could not have earned advanced degrees (in the cases where they have one); they handful who just won't let this go are simply stubbornly fond of the caps, and rationalizing. This has been clearly apparent since around 2004, when the logical debate actually ended in favor of using normal English, but they refuse to hear it. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 16:09, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

WP:SSF is just an essay that you wrote yourself.... --Enric Naval (talk) 14:30, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

And the the moon is not made of green cheese. What's your point? Everything on Wikipedia was written by someone. Saying "it's just an essay" does not address the logic within it. Many things we rely upon around here are essays, and some essays (like the GNG) eventually become not only guidelines but policy. "It's just an essay" is a bit like saying "it's just a book" or "it's just a TV broadcast". The medium is not the message. Now, did you have something substantive and responsive to say, or are you just going to play WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT again? I challenge you to respond rationally and fully to the arguments I've presented. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 08:13, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

See how far this has progressed? We just talk past each other, like happened the 200 times before this topic has been discussed. Nothing accomplished. Natureguy1980 (talk) 22:17, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Unproductive nonsense, as I figured out.
What wasn't accomplished? Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 19:09, 2 October 2012 (UTC) I already stated, above: "Nothing accomplished." Natureguy1980 (talk) 22:08, 2 October 2012 (UTC) I take it you disagree? If so, what do you think has been accomplished by having this discussion for the 85th time? Natureguy1980 (talk) 03:02, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

That's because the structure of the "debate" goes:

1. Someone questions the bird caps
2. Birders offer a defense (often a snotty one, as if picking a fight)
3. Random person is irritated, and starts looking into whether capping makes any sense and finds it doesn't in the context of a general, global encyclopedia where virtually no one knows, understands or cares about this acadaemia quirk, a handful of practitioners of which just won't let go of when the context changes, as if they'd ask for another slice of Gallus gallus at the dinner table
4. Random person demolishes argument of birders piece by piece with a rebuttal
5. Others agree with random
6. Birders (maybe after recruiting a bugwatcher) restate their argument in different terms and, with lots of handwaving, do not actually address anything of substance in the rebuttal
7. All others point out this fallacy
8. Birders argue against its fallaciousness
9. Others, now representing a broad cross-section of WP and much larger numbers than birders, re-demonstrate the fallacies
10. Birders get angry and in strident tone make lots of accusations and engage in wailing and threats
11. Birders re-restate their fallacious argument, which has already been torn apart several times; they just pretend this hasn't happened and hope that new arrivals to the debate will join their side, because weeks or months of bickering have now passed
12. It doesn't happen, and others again demonstrate that the birders argument is broken at every possible point
13. This re-starts the fallacy cycle
14. Others have better things to do and start wandering away, but if they declare victory and start changing guidelines to actually reflect what most of Wikipedia thinks is sensible, birders canvass and organize, because they are now entrenched and militarized, totally obsessed with this caps nonsense instead of editing articles; they have become soldiers, not writers, and they derail the policy processes forcefully
15. Lots of histrionics ensue, with fake "quittings" of Wikipedia, fake mediation attempts, fake attempts to go along with various proposals
16. Everyone's exhausted, and the debate implodes, which is precisely what the birders intended
17. Others slowly do make some incremental progress and just work around the birders "island"
18. Birders undo some of it, maybe even all of it, or sometimes they just lie low
19. Time passes
20. Someone questions the bird caps, and it all starts over again, but no one notices that consensus against bird caps actually already happened at step #5. Wikipedians are just too polite, usually, to get into another bitchfight with academics whose input they value until, usually, birders actually throw the first stone.

I've been reading this stuff since somewhere around 2008 as it happened, and have read back to the beginning, tracing almost every debate of this sort, and this is how it always plays out, or more often a truncated version of it. Birders just play the WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT game ad infinitum.

In closing, I'll tell you a little 100% true but privacy-redacted story about a place I worked for a long time, an online services outfit doing insanely great stuff, and growing rapidly in popularity and influence. I was only in the second wave of employees. One of the long-term, most formative, most active, most intelligent and most important people, and even most popular within and without, was also the most hot-headedly stubborn. He got it into his head that he'd been wronged, for real, in some way that everyone else saw as niggling, even nit-picking. But he kept at it, persisting that he had to have his way. This started interfering with co-workers' efficiency, and the cohesive operation of the entire system; others even started imitating him, and causing trouble. The CEO held a meeting about "strife reduction", in a place that had only months before been operating as a smoothly oiled machine. It didn't help. The increasingly vitriolic disruption included threats to quit, threats to refuse to work until mollified, threats to quit and tell others not to work there, even implausible threats to start a competing company, followed by absenteeism and a noticeable decline in productivity due to spending so much time fighting the company and the other employee alleged to have done him wrong. It was embarrassing for now-distant friends in the office. His health began to decline, as his organs were rebelling against all this anger. The CEO eventually had no choice but to bring this all to the board of directors, who were already concerned because of incoming reports that his output was, though technically and eloquently superb and visionary, sometimes grating and even offensive to many, many members of the target market, on top of all the problems being caused internally. He was summarily and without remorse fired, despite years of service and friendship, and being a well-known public face of the company. After a short while his replacement settled in, everyone adjusted, and things not only went back to normal, they were better than ever. The corporation is now about 5x larger than it was then. The fired man did find an even bigger project to work at, but didn't last long and got fired again, as his well-known preceding reputation proved true there as well. He's struggling to find any project that will take him on at all today, and the original employer won't have anything to do with him even after years. A word to the wise: Every single aspect of this story (other than perhaps the future) has a direct analogy in the most active "animal capitalization" wikiproject [or rather its cadre of commando alpha-editors] and their few project-external allies. It's not that any one of them, like any of his traits, was insufferable (well, okay, maybe one), but rather that the combination was toxic, both to the project and to himself in multiple ways. I'll leave it up to you to figure out the riddle. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 16:09, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

This is one of the nastiest diatribes I've seen in a long time. I hope you feel better about yourself. Natureguy1980 (talk) 02:16, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't need to feel better about myself; I don't have self-esteem issues. Calling me "nasty" is, aside from being ad hominem, totally unresponsive to a single point I raised, which number in the dozens. Typical. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 11:48, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Why do editors who do not usually edit bird articles care?

Alright, for BDD, Hillcrest98 and JHunterJ, why is this so important for you if you don't spend any significant time editing these articles? Do you really think that the birds wikiproject members are suffering from some mass-delusion or mass conspiracy, rather than having spent years birdwatching, reading bird articles and journals and generally enjoying all things ornithological and coming to a logical conclusion about capitalisation? Do you really think our judgment on this issue is this way off? Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:04, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

(a) I didn't bring it up (yet again), and my first response to Apteva's proposal was that I really didn't want to go through this again -- you're right, other things are more important to me. But since you asked, (b) Why haven't reliable general sources like the New York Times and the Oxford English Dictionary reached this supposedly logical conclusion? Coming to an insular conclusion is not always the same as coming to a logical conclusion. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:11, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

The OED is a tertiary source and good as a dictionary but I think lacks the ability to distinguish finer points of scientific topics, and I think this holds true for medicine, astronomy and other areas. It doesn't list species generally, only names in a general sense. Casliber (talk · contribs) 15:05, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

So the only general sources that count are specialist sources? Encyclopedia Britannica similarly uses sentence case for birds. If we take your approach, Wikispecies (a list of species generally) should capitalize bird names and Wikipedia (a general-sense encyclopedia) should not. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:29, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Ok, first of all, review WP:OWN. You don't have to edit articles to weigh in on them, and editing those articles doesn't make your opinion any more important. I don't ascribe to WPB delusion or conspiracy. I'm not just assuming good faith; it's a certainty. And it makes sense that people interested in ornithology would follow the IOC's guidelines. But those guidelines boldly clash with our own here at Wikipedia, and my fear is that specialist knowledge and respect for IOC conventions is overriding logical arguments about Wikipedia's conventions, which must come first on—you guessed it, Wikipedia. The issue bothers me because inconsistency bothers me, especially in very visible ways such as article titles. See my frustrated RM attempts at Talk:Depictions of Muhammad and Talk:Depiction of Jesus. And mark my words, if we decided all species names should use title case, I would accept that, and I'd like it better than the status quo. But because birds are a minority, and because it's very well established that Wikipedia uses sentence case, the standardization should happen the other way. --BDD (talk) 15:20, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree about inconsistency (and when I started editing here all organisms had title case names), but fact is birds differ from mammals, reptiles, plants etc. by having whole bodies that rule on and concoct official common names (much like there is a similar issue with celestial bodies). How do these guidelines clash with Wikipedia? They clash with some peoples' interpretation of guidelines. For mine, accuracy trumps accessibility, though we try to be as accessible as we possibly can. We use plain English where possible unless accuracy is lost. Which is why (in medicine) for instance Depression is a redirect, Depression (mood) is fairly stubby, but the name of what has been researched for many years and has had thousands of papers etc. is Major depressive disorder. This was the first that came to mind but there are many examples. No-one objects to weighing in but some pursuing it to the nth degree is another thing. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:11, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I think inconsistent style makes Wikipedia look a bit silly. Ornithological journals usually have a specified style, and follow it consistently, and this is a small thing that helps them look professional. Other scholarly works have a different style, with similar results. I think WP ought to look at what style is prevalent among sources, then adopt that style consistently. Most writing does not capitalize species names. "I saw a lion at the zoo."—almost never "I saw a Lion." Most scholarly work does not capitalize species names, not even bird names. So it makes sense for us to adopt a style like "species names should be lowercase except when proper names occur, etc". ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 06:47, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Because it has nothing to do with birds, but with writing an encyclopedia using normal English, instead of trying to force the entire editorship and readership to accept your jargonistic style quirk that no one in the world but ornithologists and ornithoscopists (and not even all of them) agrees with or knows and cares about. About 99.9999% of readers are going to interpret this ungrammatical capitalization as an error. The vast, vast majority of all published sources that aren't bird-specific publications ignore the "convention" because it is non-standard English used by a bunch of academics in their field-specific academic communications, and by aficionados in their field guides (where the practice arose separately, and much earlier, as a form of emphasis - the field guides on everything capitalize the entries in them). Even your presentation of a united front for the alleged logicalness of bird name capitalization is a total illusion. This has all been explained to you again and again and again and again, for years, and you just never give up. It's the very definition of WP:Tendentious editing. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 14:47, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

In case it's still not getting through clearly, consider that in genealogy publications, field-wide, there is a clear and consistent standard to capitalize the entire surname, for clarity (or sometimes not the "c" or "ac" in Gaelic patronymics:
Pepe J. GARCIA
Wilford Milton McDOUGAL
CHUNG Ying-ming
and so on. Proposing that bird common names be capitalized in Wikipedia just because bird specialist publications do so is pretty close to exactly comparable to demanding that all human surnames/family names always be all-capped just because this is how genealogy specialist publications do it. I can provide many more such examples if you like. See WP:Specialist style fallacy for why making quirky exceptions to general MOS rules just to keep one small specialty happy isn't viable (hint: every camp will their want their exceptions, and soon we'll have no style guide at all, just random people writing however-the-hell they like with no regard for readability by anyone who isn't a specialist in the same field just like them. The MoS exists for a reason. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 13:53, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Not again

Okay, after the last protracted discussion, I pretty much gave up on Wikipedia because of the continued discouragement of the establishment who like to force their generic flavor all over Wikipedia. Most people give a rats ass what is in the MOS, and so the MOS is dominated by uniformity warriors. And people working is specialties really have no interest in dealing with that, so they can and will change everything to their liking. So, now we have the "rule" that generic sources trump specialist sources. What a load of crap. Even the Chicago Manual of Style does not do that, they specifically refer to specialist sources. So yes, enforce uniformity. Lose editors. Before you do, consider what the purpose is of Wikipedia. Is it to share knowledge and make an encyclopedia? Or is it an experiment in bureaucracy building?

BTW: MOS is a guideline, and can be ignored with reason. That reason is already spelled out.-- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 13:02, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Great, so you're going to force your flavor all over Wikipedia instead, as the opposing side's uniformity warrior? What a load of crap, indeed. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:21, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Not as far as I can tell. If someone from Canada edits an article on London, England, while that is very rare, and puts in something in Canadian English about something, it is trivial for someone else to correct it. The intent was not to unify the London article into Canadian, but to add something that was not there. The likelihood of anyone who is using what to them is completely correct terminology editing "all over Wikipedia" is completely zero. There are 4 million articles. 10,000 of them are bird articles. There are also maybe 10,000 Canadian articles. No one is concerned that Canadians are going to somehow use Canadian "all over Wikipedia". If someone puts "Spotted Owl" into an article on old-growth forest,[1] then just like any other edit, if it works in that context, it stays, if not, then someone will change it to spotted owl. This is not a big deal for the encyclopedia, but it is a big deal to try to tell other editors what to do in a guideline. It is not a policy. It is not a principle, but a guideline. Guidelines are helpful if you do not know what is correct. If you already know what is correct, the guideline is less than useless if it contains misleading or erroneous advice, which in some cases can be just left as an exception and in some cases can be corrected. We can not put everything into a guideline, and the more we put in the greater the likelihood is for there to be exceptions that are not included. I before E except after C is a spelling guideline - but there are more exceptions to that rule than words that follow the rule. If your idea of what is correct conflicts with another editors idea of correctness in a particular article, that is what talk pages are for - to discuss that particular article. Apteva (talk) 15:46, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

The question, Apteva, is can I move a bird article to lowercase and have it kept there? If I write a new article on a new species, can I put it at a lowercase title and have it kept there? As things are right now, no, I can not do either, and the reason is that "uniformity warriors" from BIRDS are going to stop me—they'll move the article to caps and they'll jump on the RM and defeat it, pointing to the "guidelines" at WP:BIRDS. Shall I point you to examples of this happening in the past? 10,000 of them are bird articles. There are also maybe 10,000 Canadian articles. No one is concerned that Canadians are going to somehow use Canadian "all over Wikipedia". Maybe not Canadian, but there certainly is concern that someone might move all 10k bird articles to lowercase. There are plenty of people ready and willing to go to work on this, Apteva. It's happened before (on a smaller scale). ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:47, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

That does not seem to be a serious question. Why would anyone want to move a bird article to lower case? Doing so would clearly violate both the existing guidelines on bird article names and the uniformity of the other 10,000 articles. I can understand wanting to do it if an editor was not aware of those two facts, and stumbled across an article on Red Fox and moved it to Red fox, and one on American Robin and tried to move it to American robin. Anyone who thinks that American Robin should be at American robin needs to take that up with the editors who think it should be at American Robin and find out why they think that - a question which is trivial to answer - that is what the IOC does, and birds are about the only species that actually do have "official" names, and those names use capitalization. I see zero chance of talking the IOC out of using that convention, and barring that, if the official names use capitalization, a zero chance in getting consensus on WP to not use those official names. I think the closest that anyone could achieve short of creating a new encyclopedia with its own style guide (like Britannica) is to propose using lower case within articles and using capitalized names for article titles and in captions and info boxes. It is also common, though, to use some sort of emphasis if in text someone wants to be specific that they are referring to the species name Red fox, and not just a red fox, and the easiest way to do that is to capitalize the name, using American Robin, instead of American robin. So in summary, no matter how bizarre anyone thinks the spelling rules are for birds, it does not seem practical to try to change them - that proposal would need to come from the people who edit those articles the most. Apteva (talk) 02:38, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

If someone wants to take a bird article to Featured article they should seriously consider it(making it lower case) as Featured article criteria requires that an article follows WP:MOS which MOS:CAPS is a part. Of course they could just change the article to lower case if the issue is raised; or argue the point but I doubt that would be productive in such a scenario. Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 12:20, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that the situation right now is not exactly that one can ignore guidelines "with reason". If I start an RM to move a bird species article to lowercase and build a compelling case that the vast majority of sources, including top-quality ones (like Nature, etc), use lowercase, then a passel of "uniformity warriors" from WP:BIRDS will swoop in and smack me down, pointing to their rule that we keep bird names uniformly capped. You can not have this both ways, Kim—let's drop the pretense that there's some meta level philosophical question about how decisions are made on Wikipedia going on here and discuss the merits of the different style options before us. The idea that conformity (to something at least) doesn't matter isn't seriously being proposed or discussed here. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:33, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

The reasons have been spelled out over and over again. They are there and will be used. This discussion is the same rehash that has been going on for many years now. Ultimately, it is a guideline, hence you have to obtain consensus page by page. Go ahead. I am ready to provide my arguments against them. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 13:23, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Guidelines I disagree with, meaningless! -- you have to obtain consensus page by page! The guidelines may as well not exist at all! (Except the guidelines I agree with, of course. Those are suitable for using to demonstrate consensus. Guidelines I disagree with do not have obvious consensus.) The preceding is a load of crap, because WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is a policy, not a guideline. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:00, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Style guide are guidelines. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 22:39, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Yep, and guidelines are what WP:LOCALCONSENSUS addresses. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:02, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Except that there is no community consensus with the capitalisation is contra Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:31, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Except that there is consensus on naming conventions for fauna, which a limited group of editors dismisses for birds. (If I understood your objection correctly; it appears to be missing or misspelling a word somewhere, and I can't quite figure out which one.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:19, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Civility is also a policy. It is not disputed that some editors would prefer to use lower case, and do use lower case. It is not disputed that the naming guideline for bird articles regardless of where they are, and they are repeated in multiple places, state that bird name capitalization of species names follow the "official" spellings, including whatever capitalization is used. It is not disputed that there are 10,000 article names that follow that convention. Now, if someone wants to change that convention, this page is not the place to do that. That convention does not appear on this page, and should not be paraphrased on this page. All that is needed is a link. The place to have that discussion is on the talk page of that convention. It seems to me though, that the positions are so thoroughly entrenched that no consensus to change is possible, short of the IOC changing their names first. It would be helpful, though, as new editors join Wikipedia, and as random RM's are proposed, that a clear guideline exists here, not one that says that there is a proposal to capitalize bird names, which as I read it would indicate that none of the bird articles use capitalized names but that there was a proposal to capitalize them - until I read the guideline on bird names itself, which clearly says to capitalize bird names. See proposal 4 above. Apteva (talk) 02:09, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

To me it is very similar to the British English vs. American English issue. In articles that are clearly about the United States, use American English. In articles that are about Great Britain, use British English. In articles that are about birds the convention that has been used since forever is to use bird capitalization. In articles that are not about birds the convention that has been used since July 2004 is to not capitalize animal species names other than birds, although even that may have been disputed, until 2009, and the official guideline simply said that either format was acceptable. Apteva (talk) 02:25, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

I've said this a hundred times: Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia. That means non-specialist sources are preferred, as the majority of Wikipedia readers are not birdwatchers nor ornithologists, as determined by common sense. Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 01:36, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I've also told you a hundred times that WP:BIRDS cannot do any ownership-like action on articles in its scope. Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 01:39, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Finally, I as I said elsewhere in the discussion, I support the opinions of the other opposers. Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 01:42, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(capitalization)#Blue-gray_gnatcatcher. Please fix the definition of "specialist source". Currently it's just a catch-all for every source whose main topic is birds, including all sources that are intended for a general audience. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:27, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Kim did not "give up on Wikipedia", she played the WP:DIVA game that she has already played twice before, as can be proven by admin-recoverable, now-deleted versions of her user page where she "quit Wikipedia" in a dramatic huff over this issue after failing to win the debate, and then reappeared after a short wikibreak. She's WP:GAMING the system, and it's not conducive to finding consensus on this issue for her to inject a spurious claim that the WP community is at fault here. As I said regarding the entrenched behavior of another WP:BIRDS editor, above, these years and years of re-re-re-re-raising the same logically bankrupt arguments, as if never addressed, and doing so sometimes several times in the same discussion in the same month, even the same DAY, and most importantly in the face of opposition by almost the entirety of the rest of Wikipedia, even most other biology groups, is the very essence of WP:Tendentious editing.

It has to stop. Maybe a site-wide poll can help settle whether anyone but about 12-20 editors at WP:BIRDS and maybe that many more distributed through other projects, and a few random editors who may be German or otherwise like to capitalize nouns simply for being nouns. I'm going to propose this at WT:MOSCAPS. Enough is enough. WP:BIRDS is not to blame, just a few charismatic people at that project who sometimes appear to be WP:NOTHERE to write an encyclopedia, but to re-write an encyclopedia to read like an ornithology journal. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 14:59, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, always nice when someone else knows better what I am doing than myself. It is so much easier to hurl all kind of accusations to your opponent when you cannot get your way.-- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 08:20, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Either that, or he was responding in self-defense. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:35, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not inclined to comment further other than to mention that beside the blanket condemnation of "everyone who doesn't agree with Kim", basically, KimvdLinde has not only repeatedly personally attacked me at WT:BIRDS (e.g. "there is no good faith in SMcCandlish", etc.) behind my back, and also abused WP:DRN as a platform from which to attack me personally instead of engaging in the dispute resolution she ostensibly agreed to (and in which my side was written so neutrally that one of the DRN admins wrote "This is how it should be done."). — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 17:34, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Not responsive to the poll proposal, Kim. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 17:34, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

And people at Wikipedia are surprised that they cannot retain specialist editors

I think this protracted caps discussion is a prime example why Wikipedia cannot retain expert editors. Somewhere along the road, in an obscure discussion, some people decide that it is right to add local consensus section to the consensus policy. And start wielding it as a club when they do not get their way to impose their will to the whole encyclopedia, running of expert editors left and right because of it. Good job. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 12:04, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

If expert editors are those who do not wish to write a general encyclopedia, I can understand why they would become frustrated. Doesn't mean the general encyclopedia needs to adopt their expert jargon though, any more than we need to adopt Variety jargon to retain those experts. Some experts wield their jargon as a club when they do not get their way. Good job. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:54, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I concur with JHunterJ. Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 14:30, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Good to know that you guys are in favor of running of experts. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 16:40, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

But it's just as good to know you're not in favor of writing a general encyclopedia. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:42, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Not by your definition of a general encyclopedia. In think that is a dumbed down version. I rather produce quality. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 17:04, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Right, that's the disagreement. Not a load of crap, not a running off of experts, but a disagreement over whether using general capitalization for birds is dumbing down, or whether using Title Case for birds is an unnecessary affectation in a general reference. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:13, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I think it is a load of crap! -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 18:52, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Then you might reconsider who is wielding clubs when they do not get their way. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:08, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

The uniformists. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 19:44, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Then put down your clubs. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:53, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Self-defense is permitted. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 22:47, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

But not relevant here, since no editors were being attacked, unless you intend my "self-defense" against your "load of crap" club. Otherwise, it's just hypocrisy to claim that one group of "uniformity warriors" is club-wielders while the other group of "uniformity warriors" is self-defenders. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:55, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

You are not the arbiter of how I see it. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 17:49, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

But I can see the hypocrisy of it. You are not the arbiter of the case of Wikipedia v. expert editors. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:27, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

That is correct, it is my opinion. And I really have no problem with it that you think it is hypocritical. I do not think it is. Again, it is my opinion. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 15:05, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Who is surprised? Most specialists have careers to pursue, etc. Very few editors of any kind stick around for long periods of intensely active time in any endeavor. The idea that WP is falling apart because X number of specialist editors are leaving is spurious, because WP isn't falling apart, and new specialist editors are incoming all the time. And, most importantly, most specialist topics are not only well-covered on WP, they're often far better-covered than more general ones. Or are you telling us you believe all the bird articles are terrible, and that this is because the specialists have all fled, because of arguments about this capitalization quirk? It's you and dozen or so other participants in that project that are creating the arguments. The entire issue was dead quit until you returned from "quitting" WP (for at least the third time) recently. Coincidence? I certainly think not. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 15:06, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

I am not surprised. If you ask why experts bail out, it is because they have no time to fight with the resident uniformists, edit warriors, the POV-pushers. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 08:19, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

At what article is someone pushing a POV or editwarring? Those are noticeboard issues, and don't have anything to do with naming conventions. Please show me the poll or other source where experts say, in any significant numbers, they have left the project for the reason you just stated. Show me any bird expert in particular who says (s)he has left the project over the capitalization issue (and actually has, in fact, left). You're doing what's called "terribilzing" or "optimizing for the possible rather than the probable", imagining that if ornithologists are asked not to capitalize in WP articles that their heads will explode and they will run away screaming. In point of fact, however, all academics are very well adjusted to the fact that one publication venue has one style guide and another has a different one. They deal with this on a daily basis when submitting articles to journals, and they're far, far more intelligent and adaptable than you give them credit for. I would be insulted by what you've posted here, KimvdLinde, if I were an ornithologist, since it implies I would childishly stamp my feet and leave the Wikipedia just because I'm too emotionally immature to handle a debate, and too stupid to adapt to a simple orthographical change. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 17:34, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Birds are already covered at WP:NCFauna

The "guideline" at Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds seems to be a way to circumvent the current naming convention already in existence at WP:NCFauna, and ignore the capitalisation rules therein. There are no special circumstances here to exclude birds from these conventions, so the "guideline" at Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds should be removed, and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (birds) should be redirected to WP:NCFauna. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:50, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Uh - what about this section of WP:NCFauna:

"If the article is about an animal belonging to a group where Wikipedia editors have agreed on a non-controversial standard for choosing among two or more common names, follow that standard.

For ornithology articles, Wikipedia uses the bird species and subspecies common names published by the International Ornithological Congress at the World Bird Names database." Apteva (talk) 22:52, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't mention capitalisation style - just the naming! However in the capitalisation section it does mention referring to individual projects, which personally, I think should be removed. It's just a way to circumvent the accepted Wikipedia style at WP:TITLEFORMAT and elsewhere. What makes birds so bloody special? --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:40, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

That they contrary to any other group, have standardized names (IOC). Which makes them Proper Nouns. Which are Capitalized! Which the Chicago manual Of Style suggest you follow. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 15:17, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Can you quote the paragraph that deals with birds specifically in the Chicago Manual of Style? --Rob Sinden (talk) 16:00, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

See discussion here. I never wrote down the exact sections, but anybody with access (mine lapsed) can find it. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 17:53, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Looking at that discussion, I can see that this is an issue that will never be resolved. I'm withdrawing any involvement... --Rob Sinden (talk) 08:26, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Wise move. Natureguy1980 (talk) 15:41, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

That's precisely what it is, now. It originated as an innocent attempt to mirror what the academic sources were doing, without regard to whether doing so was appropriate here stylistically, which is not the same as factually. It became entrenched and politicized after MOS said "don't capitalize common names" starting in 2008. It's still entrenched now that NCFauna agrees with MOS. The "birds exception" (found as euphemistically vague language like "a group where Wikipedia editors have agreed on") that appears sometimes in these guidelines is the result of years of editwarring by a handful of people at the birds project against everyone else on the system.

Most WP:BIRDS editors don't care and want to move on; they're just tired of feeling demonized, and are resultantly being collectivized into a group position they wouldn't individually support. I bet if you *individually and privately* polled every WP:BIRDS member who can be e-mailed from here, "Would you support editwarring and policy-fighting for 8 more years past these last 8, wasting all that editorial time and energy, just to keep capitalization of bird names per academic standards in a non-academic encyclopedia?", 90+% of respondents would answer "No" without hesitation. I'd bet cold hard cash on that, in fact.

Anyway, back to the main question, WT:MOS + subpages emphatically is where consensus on Wikipedia style issues is forged, and WP:LOCALCONSENSUS makes it clear as a matter of actual policy that wikiprojects do not get to make up their own rules. The end, game over. The only reason this hasn't gone to ARBCOM in a mass tendentiousness case is because MOS regulars, including me, are really, really patient. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 15:20, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

To me the solution is to not try to make rules that anyone would want to break. We know that people are going to use British English and American English, so we do not try to make a rule saying that you have to use one or the other. We allow articles to use scientific names because that is what they are going to do anyway. WP is such a huge project that serves such a broad market, that being overly restrictive about how it is constructed is counterproductive. Apteva (talk) 05:25, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Almost everyone who knows English will want to use, well, real English. The only people who are going to want to capitalize bird common names are ornithologists. This isn't anything like WP:ENGVAR, which is about two massive populations who are never going to agree on a standard. It's about one little ivory tower that wants to tell everyone else how to edit if birds are involved. We allow biological articles to be at scientific names when appropriate, because (when appropriate) all reliable sources use them, consistently. By contrast nearly zero reliable sources capitalize bird common names outside of ornithology journals (the main exception being bird field guides, but they do it because almost all field guides on any plants or animals capitalize like this to make entries stand out when you're trying to read fast in the field; it's a coincidence). — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 17:34, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Other opposers, including me, have found that WP:BIRDS has also violated policies and guidelines other than WP:TITLE. Among those policies and guidelines violated are WP:CONSENSUS, WP:OWN and, during enforcement of their convention, WP:DISRUPTION. Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 17:10, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

There was also massive, intentional, coordinated disruption of WT:MOS and more specifically the blatantly canvassed total derailment of a poll there, back in in the first quarter when this issue was under discussion there. Par for the course with the handful of WP:BIRDS editors pursuing this in militaristic fashion. It's not the entire project. There are even people in that project to don't agree with IOU's capitalization scheme offline, outside of journals directly beholden to that organization. I see no evidence that more than maybe 20 people at that project support or participate in this "capitalization war" as they call it. And well they should not. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 08:19, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Why would you want to exclude all the field guides? Sounds like you are sifting through sources to align to your point of view SMcCandlish. Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:53, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

To clarify, I meant certain members of WP:BIRDS and the naming conventions written on WP:BIRDS's main page. Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 01:28, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Also, field guides capitalize the bird names because they want readers to easily recognize the bird names while reading the guides. (Geez, haven't the others said that more than once?) Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 01:31, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, as Hillcrest98 says. Casliber, almost all field guides on any flora or fauna capitalize for emphasis, which MOS specifically prohibits – there's an entire section about this at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Do not use for emphasis! The fact that bird field guides happen to be field guides and thus capitalize, on average, and that this randomly happens to also agree with IOC's practice in journals, is pure coincidence. It's like declaring that all kinds of chocolate must be capitalized, e.g. "Milk Chocolate", in Wikipedia because the internal publications of the International Cocoa Organization (like journals under the thumb of the IOC) capitalize, and most cookbooks (like most nature field guides), coincidentally do likewise. The entire idea is absurd and fallacious, regardless what the topic is. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 21:49, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Example of the problem of bird names outside of bird articles

See [2] for an example of the problem. This is not an ornithology article, and should use standard caps. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:06, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Bad example - it is very much an ornithology article. Maias (talk) 12:30, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

It's an article about a floodplain, not an article about a bird. The Bird Project might include it as well, but it's not an ornithology article. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:59, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

*groan* there is a section that is only about birds. WP:NCFAUNA does not provide guidance on this. Wikipedia:WikiProject_Birds. As far as I know, the capital names rule applies only to articles that are wholly about birds. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:49, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:MOSCAPS#Common names also supports their standard casing (lowercase) outside of ornithology articles. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:23, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Another result of a "ceasefire". Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 19:14, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

The only thing I would do there is use uniform capitalization within the article - and capitalize stilt - "Yellow-billed Spoonbills and White-headed stilts". It is too radical a change to change all of them, and it might as well be an ornithology article as it only has two paragraphs and one is only about birds. Can anyone spell edit war? Apteva (talk) 20:20, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

• 11:30, 15 October 2012‎ B (rv gfe)
• 11:03, 15 October 2012‎ A (caps per WP:FAUNA, and not that this is not an ornithology article)
• 23:27, 14 October 2012‎ B (recap)
• 23:26, 14 October 2012‎ B (restore standard caps)
• 22:49, 14 October 2012‎ A (copy edit and clean up, use normal caps in a non-Bird Project article, add convert templates)

And not one word on the talk page. Apteva (talk) 20:26, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure what this is referring to, but my guess is correcting obvious errors like changing Grizzly Bear to grizzly bear, not changing Bald Eagle to bald eagle.

As of March 2012, wikiprojects for some groups of organisms are in the process of converting to sentence case where title case was previously used. Some articles may not have been changed yet. This is true of many mammal articles, notably rodents and bovids, as well as amphibians and reptiles.

Apteva (talk) 20:34, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

So individual species (e.g., bald eagle) should be capitalized but individual subspecies (e.g., grizzly bear) shouldn't? Huh? --BDD (talk) 20:42, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

"It might as well be an ornithology article"? Well, sure, if you're going to define "ornithology article" as "anything that has a bird name in it". Can you spell "begging the question"? -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:02, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Also, this: "Do not apply such capitalization outside these categories." Since this is not an ornithology article (unless a plain is a bird), standard capitalization applies. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:03, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

The idea there are ornithology and non-ornithology articles is absurd. There are only articles. Essentially the idea is if the article is discussing a specific organism/species such as any bird species, then it should be capitalised. e.g. any article talking about biology, extinction, licencing, aviculture, whatever. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:42, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Then the concern about not using capitalized bird names outside of bird articles is not an issue because there is no such thing as a bird article, and bird names can be capitalized in any article or in no article, just like sun and moon. It is undisputed that Sun and Moon are proper nouns and are capitalized when used as a proper noun, and it is undisputed that they can be used anywhere and for any purpose uncapitalized as a common noun, sun and moon. Bird names are the same. Apteva (talk) 05:48, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

More WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Common names: "capitalized in ornithology articles,". Since that runs counter to your preference, you try to claim that there are no ornithology articles. But that just leads to the conclusion that we should fix the casing in Blue Jay as well, since it's not an ornithology article. The Sun is the name of one unique star in the cosmos, and the Moon is the name of one unique planetary satellite in the cosmos. "blue jay" is never the name of one unique bird in the cosmos. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:24, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Looks disruptive to me again. I also concur with JHunterJ, again. Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 11:59, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Ummmm...JHunterJ....nope that argument doesn't fly...the Pleiades and (more importantly) Local Group are plural. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:37, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Ummmm...Casliber....yep, my response to Apteva's argument does fly. The Sun, the Moon, the Pleiades, and Local Group are proper nouns. "The Local Group is the group of galaxies..." "the Pleiades is an open star cluster..." I don't have time to teach you how to identify proper nouns. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:55, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

So are bird species designations according to the IOC and many other bird authorities who spend time figuring out what the proper names should be. The point you seemed to be making above was about singular entities whereas the plural ones have multiple members. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:17, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The IOC doesn't say they are proper nouns, either, only that in its style it capitalizes them. The Sun is a specific star. A sun is not a specific star. The Pleiades is a specific star cluster. A star cluster is not a specific star cluster. The Local Group is a specific group of galaxies. A group of galaxies is not a specific group of galaxies. Mordecai is a specific blue jay. A blue jay is not a specific blue jay. Perhaps you could make a case for capitalizing when it is used as the English substitute for the Latinate species name, but still not capitalizing as if this were a bird guidebook when it is used as a common noun. "The Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) is a passerine bird in the family Corvidae", but "Blue jays have strong black bills", "a mixed enclosure for red-knobbed curassow and blue jays". -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:40, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Blue Jay then is a specific life form, and every article that refers to the specific life form should have them as caps. If someone is writing about some sort of jay which is blue, well that'd be different. WRT astronomy....Type Ia supernova is not a proper name, and would appear to be capitalised. Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:07, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Except that "blue jay" is exactly the same as "domestic cat" or "poison ivy", and is not capitalized in standard prose. It has nothing to do with other jays that happen to be blue without being blue jays, other cats that happen to be domestic, or other ivies that happen to be poison. It also has nothing to do with supernovas, which is just another distraction/dilution attempt. Please start a separate topic for addressing the problems you perceive with astronomy nomenclature. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:56, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Capitalizing species and members of the "species" is not unique to birds. We say Democrat and Republican and Rotarian and Marine whether we are talking about one, a hundred or a specific one. A Hooded Crow was in my yard. A Jehovah's Witness came to my door yesterday. A Catholic and a Protestant joined the procession. If I see domestic cat I am not inclined to think it is a species, but if I see Poison Ivy I am inclined to think that what the writer is trying to convey is not that they were talking about something that was an ivy and was poisonous, but that they were telling me the species of that poison ivy. If I saw Domestic Cat I would assume that there was some sort of species called Domestic cat and that the writer did not know that for most animals only the first word in the species name is capitalized. The purpose of language is to convey meaning. Apteva (talk) 18:30, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Yep. In Engish usage, we do capitalize those other things, and we don't capitalize birds. A hooded crow was in my yard with a Jehovah's Witness, near the poison ivy. Meaning conveyed. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:42, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Blue Jay is not the same as domestic cat or poison ivy as neither of the latter are official common names. Only birds have these. Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:29, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

NB: I don't have a problem with astronomy capitalisation. I have just used it to show that there are other areas where groups and classes of objects have been capitalised. Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:31, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

So now the IOC is empowered to make "official" common names? This is perscriptivism run amok. --BDD (talk) 19:32, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Yep. That is the crux of the issue. There is no such thing as an official common name. The IOC is welcome to force or award official names on whatevers upon its subjects, but Wikipedia is not subject to the IOC. On Wikipedia, the claims of how special birds are compared to every other topic area just seems lame. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:49, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

We often deal with the choice between an official name and a common name. And list both in the article. Which to use is done on a case by case basis.

It would not surprise me if someone capitalized a species to indicate a species. I think the example was that there are several species of "white-throated sparrow", but that only one of them is the "White-throated Sparrow". If you want to be specific that you saw that one species, then capitalizing it is more economical than adding additional words to convey that. Another example had something to do with Little and little. But guidelines are guidelines, they are expected to have exceptions. Can we talk the people who write bird articles to stop capitalizing? Is that a goal? A more important issue is the capitalization of the article title. Should Hooded Crow be at Hooded crow or at Hooded Crow? Those are the only realistic choices - definitely not at hooded crow. Apteva (talk) 19:40, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

For pretty self-evident reasons, the title of the article should be at Hooded crow (even if that wasn't the right capitalization, we wouldn't have a choice); however, in the article itself, if not beginning a sentence it should be referred to as a hooded crow. It's really not that hard; every other animal (excluding animals with proper nouns in their names, like a Labrador retriever or St. Bernard) works the same. I've never read anyone who seriously tried to say we should refer to a Duck-billed Platypus, an Armadillo, or a Tasmanian Devil, there's no difference here. Hall of Jade (お話しになります) 21:15, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The problem with suggesting that it is "For pretty self-evident reasons" is that it was not evident to the editors who added 10,000 bird articles and adamantly insist that it has to be Hooded Crow, both in the article and in the title. It is not a question, though of what we should do. My recollection is that should is a word that should never be used. For some people should means always, for others it is an unachievable ideal, as in we should win the lottery. The point though, is that the question of using Hooded Crow or Hooded crow can be brought up once a year for the next century. Maybe it will achieve consensus, maybe not. Unless almost all of the people who create content to the bird articles agree, it is a false consensus, and not likely to be followed. By all means, bring it up - but accept as consensus the decision that results, instead of pretending that it is a "local consensus". Apteva (talk) 21:31, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

That so many editors have gotten used to going along with this conceit (and false consensus) of capitalizing Bird Names that the self-evident reasons are no longer self-evident to you does not mean that the reasons truly are not self-evident. Stop pretending that it's not a local consensus. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:45, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

??? - JHunterJ do you honestly think that a bunch of bird enthusiasts who've read and studied oodles of papers etc. are just doing this to be obstructive or difficult or that we might be doing this because that is how we see it done outside of WP? It isn't false consensus - folks have edited and developed thousands of bird articles. Consensus isn't a bunch of disconnected editors who never or rarely edit bird articles sporadically declaring a problem with it every six months or so and trying to impose an imaginary consensus that no-one follows because they don't edit bird articles Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:25, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

??? - Casliber, do you honestly think that the New York Times and the Encyclopedia Britannica are just using standard capitalization to be obstructive or difficult? Consensus isn't a bunch of insulated editors in one project. And note that it was one of yours who declared the problem here and tried to impose the imaginary consensus on Wikipedia. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:46, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

I doubt Encyclopedia Britannica would have many entries on individual species with 80000 in total. It'd be general and use uncapitalised for groups, which is what we do. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:57, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

No, it's not. NYT and EB write individual species names uncapitalized, which is what we should do. But we have completed yet another loop, where every legitimate objection and reason is dismissed with "mob rule" or "IOC". -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:29, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Our own guidelines recommend using secondary over tertiary sources, and we generally use caution with non-peer-reviewed periodicals (such as all newspapers). So yes I will take the IOC and experts use of bird names over tertiary sources. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:44, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

The New York Times is a tertiary source? And, as has been pointed out many times, no one is arguing against the IOC on the naming of birds. It's the styling of those names (which letters to capitalize) that's the issue. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:06, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

It's a pretty general source, and obviously primary or secondary when talking about news...yet we've seen newspapers plenty of times get their info for scientific stuff from sources way down the chain, including WP. Yes, the styling of the names - you've chosen sources to follow and others of us have chosen different ones...and sources like the IOC (for birds worldwide) and (just using Australia as an example) Christidis and Boles which is the closest we have to a consensus/official checklist and guide. Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:39, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Ornithoscopy guidebooks and checklists are not relevant. Virtually all field guides on all fauna and flora capitalize in this way, specifically to make quick reading in the field easier. It's a pure coincidence, and does not represent any sort of bird field guide writers' and publishers' collective decision to support IOC naming conventions. They were capitalizing like this, for emphasis (a practice directly deprecated by MOS) and doing so across all nature topics, decades before IOC even existed (centuries even - the practice goes back to the 1700s when it was still commonplace to capitalize nouns and noun phrases in English as in German). What can be argued to make sense as a style rule in a field guide someone's going to be zipping through trying to guickly ID a bird (or rodent or flower or whatever) in failing light, has nothing whatsoever to do with what makes sense as a style rule in an encyclopedia, nor with whether it makes sense to take a style rule from ornithology journals (and no others - even Nature, etc., will not permit capitalization of bird species common names in ornithology articles they publish!) and force it on all readers and writers of the encyclopedia. That's all this comes down to, and it's high time WP stopped allowing itself to be held hostage by a dozen editors who pretend that they cannot understand this and who have disrupted Wikipedia for years with boycott threats, canvassing, poll disruption, organized campaigns to rewrite guidelines, and tendentiousness bordering on the unbelievable. Wikipedia can seriously do without any more of this nonsense. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 21:36, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

So the NYT is not dismissable as tertiary. I haven't chosen sources to follow; Wikipedia has chosen a particular style, and a project within Wikipedia has chosen, contrary to WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, to contravene that style with a specialist style. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:46, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

This is nothing to editwar over. MOS says "don't capitalize". Move on. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 20:59, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

MOS has been tweaked ad nauseam as well to accommodate this over the years. I notice your page lacks external commentary on birds. I could turn this around and say its high time a bunch of productive and prolific contributors are held hostage by external people intent on telling them how to format bird names. We are an encyclopedia not Lowest Common Denominator. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:27, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 23:52, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

In other words, the guidelines and policies are fine, except when you or your preferred specialized sources' jargon disagrees with the guidelines and policies, then it becomes a hostage situation. I am tired of being ambushed or bumrushed by groups' WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:36, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

What I am sick of uniformists who think they know better how to write a bird name than a specialist, and come with publications like the NYT to make their point that it should be lower caps because well, journalists know EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING or something like that. Despite that Chicago manual of Style refers to SPECIALIST organizations for this issue. Oh, yes, I have seen that one before. Some uniformists did not see that one coming and SUDDENLY, the CMoS was not relevant. Sorry, you cannot have it both ways. If you want to separate style and name, then at least publications specialized in style for general use that cover animals explicitly to make you case. Oh shit, that pretty much means CMoS (most other style guides are for specific groups of people), and oh the horror, they defer to specialist organizations for capitalization issues.... Which, when followed to the spirit of the rule, for birds, turns out to be the IOC. Who advocates Caps. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 12:23, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Ambushed?! Oh wait, because you're Minding Your Own Business dictating how others should write and some folks have the temerity to disagree.....? Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:35, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Oh wait, because I'm fixing problems as I encounter them on Wikipedia, across multiple projects. Have the temerity to disagree with the guidelines all you want, but when you can't build broad consensus for your disagreement, "recognize your own biases, and keep them in check." (Wikipedia:Etiquette) -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:44, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

You're not building broad consensus either. Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:47, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Broad consensus (consisting of everyone outside the Birds project, and probably some inside it) exists. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:04, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Oh yeah? How do you come to that conclusion? Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:26, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Tiresome. Go back and read the collection of discussions SMcCandlish has amassed. Or better, how do you come to the opposite conclusion? -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:35, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Oh, you mean this edit, I can see there was a lot of conclusive discussion behind that one, or the page lacking any secondary/scholarly source backing this position? Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:39, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

That page you were speaking about has links to the discussions listed. It's not an article. Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 01:07, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

It's got links to pages on fish capitalisation offwiki, so presumably this is the place that evidence of bird names being lower case would be...and is conspicuously absent. Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:07, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

It isn't finished, don't you see? Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 22:33, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I do, it's not as if SMcCandlish hasn't had time enough to compile the evidence there. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:33, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

It's about organism caps in general. Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 20:55, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Because of this discussion's inactivity, I may do a non-admin close with the result being "No consensus". Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 22:16, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Err, no, you're on one side of a debate so an involved person would not be expected to close it unless they were the nominator and were withdrawing it. The RfC tag has evaporated anyway, so I suppose whether we put a big shiny archive box around it is moot really. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:27, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I haven't had time to read over the entire discussion yet, but one thing I have observed is that there exist a number of users, who might be called "uniformists," whose mission seems to be to enforce uniformity across Wikipedia. It is not a bad idea, since it is a single website, and for people who browse through it, they will be used to its style even when they go to a different subject matter. It could be compared to having the same steet signs everywhere within a country. However, I would say that "uniformism" has its limits of usefulness when it comes to elements that are not so visual or do not "stand out" so much and capitalization is especially one of them. The bad thing about "uniformism" is that it ignores what is practical, and favors "adding rules" regardless of whether more rules are beneficial or harmful. I have observed several such individuals consistently argue for more rules, with the only reason being "we need more rules because we need to be a consistent encyclopeida," ignoring whether or not such consistency is beneficial in the first place.--New questions? 01:52, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Additionally, I do not understand the meaning of JHunterJ's accusation against certain editors that they "do not wish to write a general encyclopedia." By conflating the ideas of "general encyclopedia" with "encyclopedia where uniformity is enforced by strict rules," it loses touch with whether or not these rules are beneficial or harmful in the first place.--New questions? 01:52, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

It was a response to an accusation. But if you haven't had time to read over the entire discussion yet, that might not be clear, and your incorrect note about things being conflated emphasizes that. The bad thing about uniformism applies moreso to trying to make Wikipedia conform to rules of specialist jargon. Perhaps you should go ahead and read the entire discussion before drawing conclusions about what the individuals in that discussion are arguing for and why. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:00, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

How is capitalisation jargon? It is not as if a capital letter or two renders it unintelligible.....Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:57, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Casliber, JHunterJ used "jargon" to mean the caps style of the specialists. (I didn't intend to cause the Streisand effect during this debate, while proposing a closure.) Hill Crest's WikiLaser! (BOOM!) 03:38, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

So, would someone else mind fixing Lowbidgee Floodplain? -- JHunterJ (talk) 01:24, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Fix what then? This isn't a battleground. Fact is, we'd probably have around 12000+ articles with bird names in them, the vast majority of which are capitalised, which reflects what the actual consensus on the ground by people that actually edit is. So it would be rather disruptive to incite an edit war over this. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:00, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Fix the article that isn't about a bird to the normal, consensus, not-a-battleground, non-bird-article capitalization style, obviously. Fact is, the vast majority of the non-bird articles that mention birds might already be written in normal English if the birders would stop treating it like a battleground. It was rather disruptive for the fix I applied to be reverted contrary to the guidelines, yes. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:18, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I do not see anything to fix. The birds take up half of the article, and by capitalizing them emphasize that they are species names. It would look strange to write "black swans, freckled ducks, pink-eared ducks, grey teals". Are they swans that are black and ducks that are freckled or are they the species Black Swans and Freckled Ducks? Capitalizing them makes it clear. Apteva (talk) 03:12, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Precisely - it talks about the bird species as species, hence the capitalisation. The only reason you edited it was to change the caps, you had no interest in the topic otherwise, hence you're the one who began the armwrestle on it. Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:43, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

It is the context that makes it clear, whether talking about grizzly bears, sink wrenches, or pink-eared ducks. Unsurprisingly, this is a re-run of the discussion above, and since no one has changed their minds, we should stick with the current guidelines, and use the birder jargon capitalization in bird articles and the rest of the world's capitalization in articles that don't have birds as the topic. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:50, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

That segment of guidelines was added by one person with minimal discussion as far as I can see, and the division between "bird" and "non-bird" articles smacks of Original Research. The actual consensus is what the 12000 articles are actually written as, so highjacking the debate from afar (and failing to achieve consensus with it anyway) is does not carry weight. Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:24, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Say, that is good news! All Wikipedia articles that are currently written can no longer be improved, since their current text reflects the actual consensus. We can all now return to our other time sinks. Or I think we could continue to improve the current Wikipedia articles. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:46, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Articles only?

Recently, at Wikipedia talk:Whacking with a Wet Trout#Requested move someone pointed out that this page only talks about articles. I propose expanding it to include at least some pages in other namespaces, such as Wikipedia:Whacking with a Wet Trout. In particular, I think that essays and help pages should be covered. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:54, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

The Wikipedia naming conventions are article naming conventions. The non-article pages in the encyclopedia could follow the conventions, but if they don't, I'm not sure I see the harm. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:46, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, the answer is on the main page:

"Because credibility is a primary objective in the creation of any reference work, and because Wikipedia strives to become a leading (if not the leading) reference work in its genre, formality and an adherence to conventions widely used in the genre are critically important to credibility."

That's a compelling reason for our naming conventions. In my opinion, credibility is also important for essays and help pages. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:53, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

But there may be fewer or different conventions for essays and help pages than for encyclopedia articles. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:35, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I can't think of a single reason why Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization) should not apply equally to articles, essays and help pages. Can you? --Guy Macon (talk) 20:02, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Essays might follow Title Caps when encyclopedia articles don't, for example. But I can't think of a single reason why article naming conventions should have to be applied equally to things that aren't articles. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:24, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think much of MOS and TITLE apply to meta pages. They're about main space, about the articles in the encyclopedia. But to the extent that people feel it's an improvement to incorporate some of the same guidelines into their meta pages and essays and such, that's fine. Dicklyon (talk) 20:06, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

It appears that the main argument here is "we don't do it that way, thus we should not do it that way." I don't need to be told "The Wikipedia naming conventions are article naming conventions." or "They're about main space, about the articles in the encyclopedia." Those would be excellent answers to the question "do they apply to essays and help pages?", but that's not what I asked. I asked "SHOULD they apply to essays and help pages?". Pointing out that they don't currently apply to essays and help pages does not answer the question I asked. Pointing out that the naming convention is currently optional for essays and help pages also fails to answer my question, which is whether the policy should apply to essays and help pages. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:31, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I'd suggest that the talk page for the article naming convention is the wrong venue, but that doesn't answer the question you asked either. So, "No, the policy shouldn't apply to essays and help pages, because there are different conventions for essays and help pages than for encyclopedia articles." -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:34, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Unwatching this page per WP:DEADHORSE --Guy Macon (talk) 01:35, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I apologize for answering the wrong question. Dicklyon (talk) 02:14, 1 December 2012 (UTC)