Wikipedia talk:Titling in sentence case

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from Wikipedia talk:Article titles

From http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles&oldid=550593821

Sentence case came about after we stopped using CamelCase (see Wikipedia:CamelCase and Wikipedia) in 2001. Start with Wikipedia:Article titles (6 November 2001) and Wikipedia:Canonicalization (5 October 2001). — Hex (❝?!❞) 14:59, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting... thanks Hex. That explains a lot.

It seems that the choice was originally between using CamelCase ("BlackBear" or "HistoryOfSlavery") and Sentence case ("Black bear" and "History of slavery"). I actually agree with our decision when faced with that choice ("Sentence case" is much better than "CamelCase"). The next question is whether we ever discussed the pros and cons between "Sentence case" and "Title Case"? Blueboar (talk) 17:30, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Also, it appears that case itself did not matter. "For instance: naming conventions, naming Conventions, Naming conventions, Naming Conventions ...will all link to the same page (which will be titled titled "Naming Conventions"). One could link to http.../naming_conventions or http.../naming_Conventions, etc." Xkcdreader (talk) 17:36, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That only works if there are redirects in place. Otherwise case does matter in the links. older ≠ wiser 17:54, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hence the use of past tense. =P He was quoting the “March 28, 2001 update” in this archived discussion. Apparently, the old software treated wikilinks as case-insensitive. —Frungi (talk) 18:24, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That's nothing. You should have seen the problems we had before redirects were invented. — Hex (❝?!❞) 20:41, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

To cut to the point... We originally went with Sentence case due to limitations of the software that existed back in 2001... these limitations in the software limited our options when it came to titles. However, at least some of those original software related reasons why we went with Sentence case formatted titles no longer apply. For example, we now have piped links, which allow us to use different capitalization between the Title of an article and how it appears when linked in article text (and we can link without the need for a redirect)... something we could not do back in 2001. Changes in the software mean that, now, in 2013, we have more options as to how we are able to format our titles (options that we did not have when we created the sentence case "rule"). And given that we now have more options, perhaps it is time to revisit the "rule" and see whether it still has consensus or whether we should modify it. Blueboar (talk) 18:50, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As this is a fundamental change, this would need participation on a Wiki-wide scale. I can see no compelling reason to make this change, and I doubt it would garner consensus, but of course, if anyone is willing to make a proposal with a compelling case for the change please ensure that it is made in the correct forum, so that it reaches the widest possible number of interested editors. --Rob Sinden (talk) 19:27, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Of course. No one has suggested making such a significant change without good discussion and wide consensus. Indeed, I am not even sure how I would vote if this came up in an RFC... I just wanted to make sure that we all understood the context of why we made the "Sentence case rule" in the first place, and at least consider the idea that this context might no longer be relevant, and the "rule" outdated. Blueboar (talk) 19:45, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it is, but I do think that every rule should have some associated footnote explaining how it came to be. — Hex (❝?!❞) 20:43, 15 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia still treats lowercase first letters (in links) as upper case right? Theoretically, would there be any consequence, besides loss of labor, to adding "lowercase title" to pages with non proper noun titles, such as "red meat" and "black bear"? Xkcdreader (talk) 00:46, 16 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The history of sentence case for Wikipedia titles is interesting to several of us and well worth documenting in an essay. As for changing this styling, I think it would create great confusion and trouble where there is virtually none. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:20, 16 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]