Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters

"Unnecessary capitalization"

There are a few editors who vehemently believe that the phrasing "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization," found in the lead of this style guideline, should be interpreted to mean that if any significant number of sources avoid capitalizing an item, then Wikipedia should never capitalize it. That is, if some sources don't capitalize, then the capitalization is clearly "unnecessary", and the lead sentence of this guideline thus demands that we avoid it.

But I think this might be overstating the case. The specific sentence in question is not well supported in the main text of the guideline, except in so far as it applies to specific subject areas. It is not addressed in the general sense, and I think it may appear more strict that it was intended to be. I suggest that a modified wording -- perhaps "gratuitous capitalization" -- might make more sense. It would allow us the leeway to use capitalization to mark something as a proper noun when it is useful to distinguish a specific use from the general, such as with Crown of Thorns or Cuban Missile Crisis.

In either case, whichever way we decide, examples and a detailed explanation of how the consensus interpretation was arrived at should be added to the guideline to complement the specific subject-area examples already present.

-- Powers ^T 15:47, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose modified wording suggestion. (If it ain't broke – don't fix it. :)

Although I was not involved in the consensus discussion to rename Crown of Thorns to crown of thorns, I agree with the sound reasons given. The Cuban Missile Crisis move request discussion is still ongoing, so it does not seem appropriate to change MOSCAPS to possibly influence the outcome of that discussion, and I do not choose to comment here on that issue.
FWIW —Telpardec  TALK  19:07, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

My contention is that it is "broke". My examples were just that, examples -- there are numerous others. Powers ^T 20:10, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I am one of those who favor the WP style and its clear statement that ""Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization." We had general agreement on "words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in sources are treated as proper names and capitalized in Wikipedia" (though Noetica quibbles with "proper names" as the right characterization); where sources are inconsistent, there's no harm in WP preferring the style of not capitalizing. LtPowers's logic that "there's only one so it must be a proper name" is not supported in WP or anywhere else that I know of. Dicklyon (talk) 19:49, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

You are mischaracterizing my argument, which is an indication that you do not understand it. It is little surprise that you oppose the straw man version of my contention, but please don't think it accurately represents what I think. Powers ^T 20:10, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Hmm; I don't know what you think, then, if that isn't it. In addition to chastising, can you present your non-strawman contention to clear things up? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:36, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

It is not that all singular entities have proper names, but that a) some singular entities are often treated as if they have proper names, and b) even if such usage is not universal, it may be useful or desirable for our purposes. Powers ^T 23:15, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I also think it's reasonable the way it is and is being interpreted, as you described. I like the opening paragraph as is: "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." ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:36, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

But the opening paragraph should be a summary of the contents below, but "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization" is not supported by the content in the rest of the page. Do you know there was once a contention that our article on Halley's Comet should be at Halley's comet? An exception had to be written into this guideline to avoid that result. Powers ^T 23:15, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

I have stayed away from this forum since my painstakingly consultative efforts to bring the lead up to standard were hijacked by those with a separate agenda. In particular, PMAnderson's sockpuppet User:JCScaliger was deployed provocatively against me (here and elsewhere), and used disruption of the lead as part of that campaign. Of course I backed off. An admin had site-banned PMA for a year, and ArbCom has since added an indefinite prohibition on his involvement with MOS issues interpreted broadly. I am not yet ready again to take up the issue of the lead, which remains factually defective, ignores current linguistic theory, and is seriously misleading as a guide for article titles, RM discussions, and much more on Wikipedia.
I will just say this, for now: "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization" has stood as a guiding principle through all these shifts. It is solidly in accord with our reliable sources (that is, major style resources across the English-speaking world). It is not meaningless as some allege, since however "unnecessary" gets interpreted, the statement efficiently records a consensus against unprincipled capitalisation. It is not abused in RM discussions such as the current one at Talk:Cuban Missile Crisis – where no matter what precise numbers are extracted from the sources, and however "unnecessary" gets interpreted, capitalisation is plainly optional because it is plainly avoided in a large proportion of publications. That finding, combined with our statement, yields robust guidance to settle time-wasting disputes. A pity the rest of the lead undoes some of that good work.
Noetica^Tea? 23:38, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

You're missing the point (amidst your typical self-aggrandization... "my painstakingly consultative efforts to bring the lead up to standard were hijacked" indeed). The problem is that any use of lowercase in sources is seen by you, Tony, and Dick as rendering capitalization "optional", and thus verboten on Wikipedia. That's the whole reason why I suggest the word "necessary" must go; it's being used as a bludgeon by the three of you against anyone who dares disagree with your consensus-of-three. Here's Dicklyon: "Even if current usage were majority caps ... , we would use lower case, per MOS:CAPS." That's right, even if a majority of sources think that a phrase is a proper noun and thus should be capitalized, Dicklyon suggests that MOS:CAPS requires us to use lowercase. That's absurd, and clear evidence that MOS:CAPS is being abused, if it can be construed to produce such an absurd conclusion. Powers ^T 20:19, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

If you want to test that theory, it would be better to do so in the context of a title that actually does have majority upper case in sources. That's not the case with Cuban missile crisis, nor crown of thorns, as has been demonstrated ("painstakingly" even, as Noetica points out). Dicklyon (talk) 22:20, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Powers:

If you must make impotent attacks instead of contributing to the development of the Manual of Style, please at least have substance to support them. "Self-aggrandization"? Review the dialogue that I initiated and you will see that those efforts were indeed painstakingly consultative. It's in the archives here. Note my 1000-word initial post which canvassed all relevant issues for the benefit of editors, and the way I stewarded proceedings from there. Note how eventually the discussion was waylaid by sockpuppeting political activity that ruined everything. I withdrew, when that came to the fore. Note that your voice was entirely absent, though you had every opportunity to contribute, as many of your colleagues here did.

Your allegations are ridiculous and offensive. No one is abusing the long-standing key provision in the lead of MOSCAPS. You are simply not paying attention, as we can see from statements like this: "That's right, even if a majority of sources think that a phrase is a proper noun and thus should be capitalized, Dicklyon suggests that MOS:CAPS requires us to use lowercase." Have you actually read what you pretend to report on here (this RM discussion)? The term "proper noun" does not appear anywhere in that discussion. Nor should it. You have repeatedly failed to grasp the dynamics of the issue. If you had read the 1000-word post that I refer to above, you might have some sense of what is going on. I suggest you do that; then reflect on what a manual of style is, and how style differs from content, and how an encyclopedia must use its sources differently with respect to content and style. Come back when you are better informed and ready for a civil dialogue. ♥

Noetica^Tea? 23:30, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

For the billionth time, Noetica, you don't get to decide who gets to participate in discussions. Powers ^T 14:46, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand. I never wanted to decide any such thing; I called for, and welcomed, as many comments as could be got from all quarters. No one was left out because of time limitations, or for any other reason. Nor do I begin to comprehend "for the billionth time". My push is always for genuine, wide-open community discussion. I would seek to exclude a user who is topic-banned from such discussions, who comes in under a cloak of sockpuppetry to sabotage consensual process and to wage a campaign against me in several forums (including ArbCom). That's all. Can we move on? Noetica^Tea? 01:40, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

"Come back when you are better informed and ready for a civil dialogue." I am always prepared for civil dialogue; that I disagree with you is not an indication of incivility, although it seems like you often conflate the two. So I am not about to let you dictate when and where I can participate in discussions based on your notions of whether or not I'm being civil. Powers ^T 19:06, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

I think Noetica was referring to your phrasing "amidst your typical self-aggrandization" and your characterization of our position as "absurd". I agree it's a bit uncivil and too personal to say that the long-standing phrasing and interpretation of MOS:CAPS is due to me and Noetica and Tony and is absurd. In fact, though we have been active in moving toward better MOS compliance, many other editors also help with that. I don't mind if you have a different opinion of what the MOS should say or how it should be interpreted, but try not to be so obnoxious about it. Dicklyon (talk) 20:47, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

You three almost always vote in lockstep; it's like clockwork. You're in accord on almost every naming-related issue I've seen. There may be others who agree with you, but the regularity with which the three of you show up to comment is astounding. Regardless, I'd be happy to return to discussing the merits of your interpretation of the phrasing. Do you care to respond to my point that taking such a strict view of capitalization-only-when-unanimous is non-optimal for the reader? Or the fact that such wording as you rely on for your characterization is present only in a segment of the policy designed to summarize the policy and not in the more detailed body of the policy? Powers ^T 23:02, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

(Sheesh, no wonder I've been staying away from this talkpage.) Lockstep like at this current RM, you mean? And if you look at the history you will see that Dicklyon and I have edited in opposing directions on the lead of this very page, which we are now discussing. I might as well complain that you vote in lockstep with Kauffner and JHunterJ, the propriety of whose move closures is currently under examination at ArbCom, and where you support his closures as predictably as I (and several others) censure them (see preserved comments, including yours and mine).
As I say, let's move on; but do acquaint yourself with the relevant facts of English first, by reading and understanding the painstaking 1000-word post that I link above. It is essential background that you currently lack.
Then I might consider replying to your own specific questions.
♥ Noetica^Tea? 05:04, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Powers, I've never advocated that one lower-case use vetoes otherwise consistent caps; I in fact specifically denied such a radical position when the wording of the lead was last extensively discussed and revised. See Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters/Archive_6#General_principles. Also note that Noetica has never been happy with the wording that DGG proposed and I inserted into the lead, and he tried to change it, over my objection, and got dragged into an arbcom proceeding partly based on the shit-storm that ensued. So far this lead is as close as we've come to consensus on this particular guideline. Dicklyon (talk) 05:33, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

And I disagree with Dicklyon on that last point. The present lead is amateurish garbage, and nothing like consensual. It is not even founded in linguistic facts, or facts about the competence of "reliable sources" to rule on proper names. Sources that are reliable for content are generally clueless about proper names (and matters of linguistics more broadly). Wikipedian principles concerning reliable sources only ever envisaged their use for settling content, not for their linguistic prowess or their stylistic acumen.

When people are ready to move through this slowly and attentively, I will once again be ready to show in detail how the lead is broken and how it might be repaired. Then we could have a genuine discussion toward a genuine consensus.

Noetica^Tea? 06:24, 19 June 2012 (UTC) ☺

Yes, yes, you will someday bestow your wisdom upon the masses that we might be enlightened. Can we get back to discussing the merits, please? Powers ^T 19:25, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

If you really want informed and consensual improvements to the lead of this crucial MOS page, let me know. On the other hand, if you are more comfortable at a level of wilful avoidance when someone with relevant specialist knowledge posts here, that's your limitation and no one else can do anything about it. A pity for the Project; but no problem for me personally.
☺ Noetica^Tea? 00:39, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

I apologize for exaggerating your adherence to the textual equivalent of the one-drop rule, Dick. May I ask, then, what percentage (apparently greater than 0.001% but less than 50%) is the minimum proportion of lower-case usage required to determine that a phrase is not a proper noun, based on your reading of this guideline? And is there any support for that reading beyond a single very general sentence in the lead of this guideline? And under what circumstances would you support an exception to this guideline (which, by definition, is supposed to allow for common sense exceptions)? Powers ^T 19:25, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't have an answer. Do you? You could look at my capitalization history and try to find cases where I've switched to lower case, or argued for lower case, where the percentage of lower case in sources is relatively low; then we'd have something to talk about. Dicklyon (talk) 00:57, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

I've been watching this thread for a few days, noting Powers's uncivil and sarcastic comments and expressions of unusual logic. I suppose I should change my signature to Noetica–Dick–Tony, should I? I'm feeling like the tail-end of a Siamese triplet: is this a reasonable item of gossip to be putting about, Powers? Am I allowed to comment without accusations that I'm a sock or a conspiratorial backchanneller? Tony (talk) 04:28, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Make an exception to the MoS capitalization guidelines for the job titles

Make an exception to the MoS capitalization guidelines for the job titles: Chief Mechanical Engineer and Locomotive Superintendent
Please comment on the talk page. Jojalozzo 15:04, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Moved from WP:Requests_for_comment/Request_board Coastside (talk) 22:45, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Can we ignore this, or is someone re-opening a request for an MoS exception? Dicklyon (talk) 03:24, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

I was cleaning up the RfC Request board. You're welcome to close this if you think that's appropriate, but the article talk page doesn't show the discussion as closed. Coastside (talk) 06:53, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Relevant move request

Talk:Wild_Turkey#Requested_move—FYI. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 23:26, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Pardon, to avoid sending you there if this kind of thing isn't interesting to you, I should have noted that this has to do with the bird exception at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#Common_names. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 23:28, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Black and White people

Old debate, reborn. I think this should at least be mentioned in the MOS. Fact is, it's strange that ALL nationalities and ethnicities are capitalized in English except for these two words. I've heard all the arguments, the main two being:

• "Black" and "White" are catch-all terms and do not refer to a single nationality or ethnicity
• "Black" and "White" are ordinary words denoting colors, therefore no need to capitalize them.

Simple answers to both -

• "Asian" is a much larger catch-all term referring to over 2.5 billion people, or nearly half the world's population, and that's capitalized
• "White" and "Black" are color words, but their meaning is clearly different (Black people aren’t black and White people aren’t white), but the words refer specifically to ethnicity.

Most dictionaries have "black" and "white", but most of the major ones, especially the OED, are descriptive, therefore reflect usage. The current usage prevails with non-capitalization, but there's no guarantee this won't change at some point in the future.

An increasing number of websites capitalize these two terms and I believe it should at least be mentioned both in the MoS and in the relevant aricles for Black people and White people that there is a debate and a dual usage on spelling. I also believe WP editors should be allowed to write "Black/White" in an article if they wish to, instead of "black/white", without fear that someone will come along after them and revert the caps. After all, a lot of source material used as references in WP articles uses the capitalized forms. Just in the same way that the choice of American or British English is left to the authors (e.g. color/colour) as long as, of course, there's consistency within the article.

Let's not forget that Wikipedia is itself a descriptive encyclopedia. It therefore needs to reflect the usage of a large portion of the world's English-speaking population who think these two words (the ONLY two ethnic descriptors in the entire language to lack capitalization!) should be capitalized. BigSteve (talk) 08:42, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

p.s. This is just as a by-the-by and not an argument, but simply food-for-thought: the French language, which does not capitalize ethnicity/nationality words when they are used as adjectives but does capitalize them when they're used as direct demonyms (i.e. "une personne anglaise" but "un Anglais") does capitalise "un Blanc/les Blancs" and "un Noir/les Noirs" (not always, but certainly more often than is the practice in English. Major dictionaries also reflect this – Larousse). Whereas English, which always capitalizes such words...doesn't do so with these particular two words. Strange or what... BigSteve (talk) 08:53, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I think Asian comes under the rule that adjectives formed from proper nouns (and nouns based on them) are capitalized. --Boson (talk) 11:31, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Might well be. But some rules come in on an individual basis, and I believe the argumentation for allowing the capitalization of "Black" and "White" is sound. Not to mention that the OED, which I somehow failed to point out earlier, acknowledges & allows these two capitalizations, as well as explaining that they indeed refer to groups of many ethnicities:

• black > adjective – 2 (also Black) belonging to or denoting any human group having dark-coloured skin, especially of Afrtican or Australian Aboriginal ancestry
• white > adjective – 2 (also White) belonging to or denoting a human group having light-coloured skin (chiefly used of peoples of European extraction)

Oxford Dictionary of English – Second Edition, Revised. Oxford University Press, 2005.

Can we therefore add a mention in the MOS that allows these 2 capitalizations? BigSteve (talk) 06:49, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't think there is any question that they are often capitalized, and I see no compelling reason why the MoS should advise against that practice. Personally, I don't see a reason for explictly mentioning it at all. I suppose such a statement might be used as a justification for reversion when editors differ on whether "black" should be capitalized in a specific context, but I don't think that would necessarily be helpful. Like many other words, I think, "black" should be capitalized when used like a proper noun/adjective but not as a matter of course when used as a common noun or adjective (without implying self-identification with a particular ethnicity or culture) - even when "black" actually refers to a dark-brown skin colour. Hence, I would normally prefer the uncapitalized "black people", but I would prefer the capitalized "Black English" when referring to a particular language variety used by British people of African or Caribbean descent. I can see advantages and disadvantages in mentioning it. --Boson (talk) 11:46, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Certainly valid points, but I think it should be explicitly clarified in the MoS that the two words may be capitalized, as well as mention this in the White people & Black people articles. Because the case is far from clear – there are long discussions & arguing over the matter in nearly every archive of the Black people talk page – here are just a few examples – Arch-17, Arch-16, Arch-11, and quite a heated one here Arch-4 – and none of these long talk sections have come up with definitive conclusions but have merely petered out, until the next archive of the talk page. Hence why I feel the MoS should mention it, and say that it's okay to use both the capitalized and lowercased versions of both words in all articles. The fact that the words are lowercased in nearly all articles, despite the amount of editors stating in said talk pages that they prefer to capitalize them, suggests to me that there are editors who systematically go around articles editing out the capitals. I'm not going to go around investigating it but it seems self-evident. Let's briefly mention it here in the MoS. BigSteve (talk) 12:26, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Celestal bodies

See Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#Celestial_bodies. It says:

• The words sun, earth, moon and solar system are capitalized (as proper nouns) ....

Yea sure. That is the way to write a MOS/documentation/Help. -DePiep (talk) 01:07, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

And there is a rule: "when 'the' is used (the earth), do not capitalise". This rule did not end up in the MOS, but could help a lot. -DePiep (talk) 01:58, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Capitalization of terms of art and doctrinal names

Are terms of art or doctrines capitalized under this manual? I've noticed that Tax deed sale and Sheriff's deed both capitalize the phrase "Tax Deed" and "Sheriff's Deed" (though inconsistently). That appears to be inconsistent with the preferences stated here but I figured I should first before changing them.

(Side note: if I'm posting this in the wrong place, I'd appreciate direction on where this ought to be posted instead.)

--Nuncio (talk) 00:39, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

List of WP:JOBTITLES articles

Why are so many job titles capitalized, e.g. as in Category:Lists of Masters of Cambridge University colleges and Category:Lists of presidents? Can we fix this? Compare Category:Lists of presidents of organizations, which is pretty clean (I fixed a few). Dicklyon (talk) 21:02, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Surely the reason is that—for newspapers, magazines, and books at least—rules for capitalization in headlines, article titles, category titles, chapter titles and section titles are usually quite different from (more flexible than) rules for capitalization in body copy? Surely it should be the same for Wikipedia too? Wikipedia is surely not going to collapse if most capitalization in titles is NOT "fixed"? Surely there are lots of more important things that need "fixing". Do you think that Manual of Style/Capital letters absolutely MUST be changed to Manual of style/capital letters? On capitalization, the Economist Style Guide online cites Emerson as writing that, “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”. ;-) LittleBen (talk) 13:02, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I think the MOS represents general consensus and practice about how articles should be styled, including titles. There's no particular urgency to fixing these things, but some editors, like me, do like to work on style. You need not if it doesn't interest you. But please do at least be aware that in WP, the style is explicitly that caps in titles follow the same rules as in sentences, unlike many of those other works that you mention, which often use "title case". We don't do that. Dicklyon (talk) 06:15, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I started an RM at Talk:List of Presidents of the United States#Requested move, which is the one people like to point to as precedent for caps. We'll see where it goes... Dicklyon (talk) 06:26, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

It's annoying to a lot of readers to have to bumpety-bump through a bunch of initial-capped words every time there's a job title in the text. And there's the slippery-slope effect, too: He's now a Garbage Collector with the local city? He's the boss's Assistant? Tony (talk) 07:32, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

As mentioned here, there are a zillion such capitalized Presidents of the United States articles. The people who created all these articles surely would disagree with you about capitalization—and maybe compare such a proposed change with running a steamroller over Wikipedia to flatten it out, or switching from color TV to B/W. You should lump all the articles together in any proposal, to make it clear that this is not a "small change", rather than try to sneak one through and then quietly zap all the others "to bring them into line". LittleBen (talk) 07:52, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

LittleBen, I strongly support your views. I think its aesthetically better to have capitalized form of titles. I have no desire to entangle myself into a discussion about WP rules (in this case, MOS:CAPS), I just don't think it will look good without capitalization. That's one of the reasons why I reverted certain edits on this matter last year. The other reason is, indeed, consistency. If someone decide to work on this issue in the future, that user will need to fix literary countless of lists of presidents and other heads of states and governments on Wikipedia which have capitalization. From my point of view, its much better to leave it this way. --Sundostund (talk) 10:29, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

In many cases, like List of Presidents of Afghanistan, the person who created the article with the correct title might be pleased to see it move back there. Dicklyon (talk) 20:56, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I would dispute your use of the word "many", which (I believe) is not supported by facts. In any case, it's better to go with what the majority of Wikipedia users prefer, rather than force them to eat what you prefer or think "right". People come to Wikipedia for authoritative, interesting, and well-written content, and good grammar, but certainly not to fight never-ending wars over small details of punctuation and capitalization. Wikipedia is not about absolute right and absolute wrong, it's about walking the middle road, being tolerant of other people's views—ignorant and ill-informed as you may think they are; it's about—as far as possible—treating everyone gently and with respect, and not about whacking as many people as possible with rules and reverts, and certainly not about harassing dedicated contributors and users into quitting Wikipedia. The Wikipedia ideal is a community of people who make the utmost effort to work together, rather than trying to force their "religion" down other people's throats all the time. LittleBen (talk) 01:16, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Why are you using such combative language? It would be fantastic if we could discuss this in a civilized, detached manner, please. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:47, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Have you read this or this? LittleBen (talk) 03:39, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I see more unnecessarily combative language from you in both discussions. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 04:30, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Erik, about the end of June, LittleBen suddenly took an interest in Wikipedia space and started editing style and naming policies and guidelines. He got really bent out of shape when I didn't let him add his how-to link into the titling criteria section; read about it [in WT:AT archive 37]. Since then, he's been wikihounding me, objecting to what I do routinely, canvassing others to help object, etc. It will blow over, I expect. We'll probably need to restart some RMs when the RM bot is fixed, and get some more neutral eyes on things. Dicklyon (talk) 05:45, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

The issue of referring to MoS (regional) for authoritative guidance on use of foreign terms and foreign names in articles and article titles is surely obvious to anyone. Article titles are supposed to be in English, but how to do it obviously requires a regional MOS. Despite this, Dicklyon not only refuses to allow any link from WP:Article titles to MoS regional, but also seeks to have a user who repeatedly tried to romanize Vietnamese article titles to English banned. That's not merely inconsistent, but also abusive. He has also posted threatening messages on my talk page. LittleBen (talk) 08:43, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

As far as I can recall, I have not commented on the issue of links to MoS regional from WP:AT; certainly I have not "refused to allow", as I have no power to disallow such a thing; and I don't see why it would bother me. Yes, such a link may have been caught up in a revert; I don't recall exactly who did what when you were warring there. As for Kauffner's sockpuppet investigation, yes, it does seem that some kind of a ban would be right to seek next. And I can't see what you would consider threatening in my post to your talk page. So, again, what's with the tantrum? Dicklyon (talk) 14:55, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Were his threatening messages on your talk page somehow expunged? What happened to them? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 16:44, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Over

hello,

is Bridge over Troubled Water (song) really correct? You state that words consisting of four or less letters should be in lower case, but several reliable sources disagree with this claim. Regards.--GoP_T^C_{N 20:31, 24 July 2012 (UTC)}

Different sources use different length thresholds to decide which preposition to capitalize. Myself, I prefer to capitalize those with several syllables, as that feels to me less arbitrary than picking a number of letters; but that's not Wikipedia's style. A. di M. (talk) 07:31, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

A question on sentence and Title case

Perhaps this has been asked before. Is it ok to use Title case for the names of books, magazines etc and the sentence case for the news headings in the reference section of an article? Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 05:48, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, as long as the article isn't already using a consistent referencing style that uses title case for news headings. If news headings are already being consistently title cased, you should continue that. If they are already being sentence cased consistently, you should continue that. If there aren't any examples to follow in the article, or if they are inconsistent, you can make them consistent in either mode. See Wikipedia:CITE#Citation style for the parallel guidance for citations. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:27, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

It is quite acceptable (everywhere, as long as a house-style doesn't say not to) To Downcase Lumpy NYT Titles Et Al. In A Ref List. This is quite different from, say, changing BrEng spelling into AmEng spelling in a heading or quote, which is of course verboten, ofr a number of good reasons. But you don't have to downcase the original in a ref list. Tony (talk) 04:03, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the help.--Dwaipayan (talk) 14:50, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Composition Titles

Hello. I'm new to Wikipedia, which means that I am not well-versed in the subtleties of the various Manuals of Style. I noticed that both the Manual of Style subsection here, and the Manual of Style for calital letters dealing with composition titles here only have rules for English titles. However, there are numerous composition titles that were either first presented by the creator in another language or that are better known in another language. Especially in the latter case, as per Wikipedia's article naming guidelines, it might be useful to reference the capitalisation rules for foreign works on the style guide pages for articles and composition titles. Since the rules for other languages can be written concisely, unless this is stated elsewhere or against policy, they should be briefly stated here:

• For German titles, capitalise the first word and all nouns
• For French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese titles, capitalise only the first word and all proper names.

The guides are very dense, so it is likely that there is a good reason the rules are not stated in the style guides in which I thought to look. However, they are important rules to follow as I've noticed a few discrepancies with the titles of musical compositions. Regards, Paul.m.kirschner (talk) 20:46, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

It's actually a bit more complicated than that, as you can see by looking at, for instance, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/France & French-related#Works of art. In that case, people working on different topics—to wit, literature and music—have adopted different capitalization conventions for titles, and both have precedent in contemporary French practice. Deor (talk) 21:18, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Hello, Deor. Thank you for your response, and I do know that the rules I gave were quick simplifications. For example in German, the pronoun "Sie" is capitalized, while all others are not. In addition, nominalized adjectives are generally capitalized, while most others are not. Some of the arcane rules, especially with the Romance languages, can be very confusing. I should have been more clear that my comments pertained to the titles of musical compositions. I see that a reference to the source of rules is made on the page you provided, but is that really pragmatic? For people new to Wikipedia it might be difficult to find, but I do understand the organisational reasons behind the decision. Perhaps on this page there could be a level four subheading "Languages other than English", where there would be internal links to the rules of capitalization in different language. Since this could get bulky as there are thousands of languages, there could be categories (e.g. "Romantic Languages") with, if need be, a further set of links. Thanks, Paul.m.kirschner (talk) 22:33, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

I am wondering if this would be useful for German works. I tend to think not. The MOS page linked above has ". . . generally, retain the style of the original". I would normally expect someone mentioning a German work to have access to that work and just copy the actual title. I only see problems occurring if an individual English source applies different formatting rules, e.g. because of the house style of the English publisher concerned, but I don't see how a simplified Wikipedia version of the foreign rules would be helpful. I see the problem with French, if French publishers use different standards. Does this lack of consistency apply to any other languages? With German, I see a problem of editors being encouraged to deviate from the actual standard because of simplifications in the Wikipedia rules. On the other hand, I see the advantage of requiring the original capitalization to be used, in order to avoid lack of consistency caused by copying from English publishers with different house styles. There is an occasional problem with different editions of a book using different capitalization, but I don't think this proposal would help much. --Boson (talk) 12:48, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Hello Boson, and thanks for your comments. It is usually best to retain the style of the original, but sometimes it is very hard to determine the original title as first presented by the composer. Discrepancies can be found among different editions, and that can be confusing. For example, a work originally published in Leipzig might be reproduced by an American publishing house who will actually change the original title. Another common practice among publishers is to capitalize all the letters of a publication. Old editions of Schirmer, Peters, Novello, and Breitkopf und Härtel are notorious for this. When the original title of the work cannot be found, it is usually safest to rely on the LoC Authorities Catalog. My proposal really isn't one of adding simplified rules, but actually making the actual rules easier to find on the MoS pages. Thanks, Paul.m.kirschner (talk) 16:11, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Non-English titles should simply be in sentence case. Title case only applies for titles in English. (For some titles, determining the language will be difficult, but the context of, say, an album, the language of a complete work, or an artist's other work should offer help.)

A thorny problem I see with German titles is if they should use the new (post-1996) spelling rules, or not. For older works, this would strike me as questionable, and for newer works, it should be avoided, as well, if the artist intentionally decided to retain pre-1996 spelling, but how to determine if it was intentional or not will likely be impossible in most cases and is bound to make this issue a big headache. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:17, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't actually mean the titles of the pages but rather when titles appear in other places, such as work lists. Paul.m.kirschner (talk) 12:17, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Titles of people (2)

See also Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters/Archive 7#Titles of people.

The section has improved since I last looked at it but some strange wording has drifted in. The title of king etc is not a "job title" or an "office [of state]" or a "position". Calling it such distorts several of the sentence:

• "Offices, positions, and job titles" if king and emperor are to be listed then the word "job" should be removed from the sentence.
• "When a very high ranking office ..." Queen title is not an office. So Betty's title is to be used as an example the the words "very high ranking office" needs to be replaced with the word "title".
• "When the correct formal name of an office" The French kingship was not a office of state.

-- PBS (talk) 14:28, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I detect no significant change to the wording since your last edit there in January. Dicklyon (talk) 14:50, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Shrug, must not have noticed the above when focusing on what I though was a bigger problem. However on re-reading it now I do not think the wording mentioned above is correct. -- PBS (talk)

It would probably be useful then to look at the history and see what it evolved from. Or propose a change. Dicklyon (talk) 16:58, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I thought I had proposed two specific changes (and indicated that a third sentence needs a similar change) -- although I am not fussed about whether the titles or the examples are changed. -- PBS (talk) 20:25, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Offices, positions and job titles are subcategories of titles; kings are nonetheless titles and should therefore be capitalised. Your suggestions while valid, are very specific and focus more on nuance of diction than pragmatic policy. Feel free to perhaps modify the language accordingly, if you think you could make things more clear. Best, Paul.m.kirschner (talk) 16:30, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Royal Family

Part of a discussion at Talk:Elizabeth II#Capitalisation and Rhodesia focuses on the capitalisation of the proper name "Royal Family" in the article. Right now, the article does not capitalise the proper name. I wonder if some who are familiar with the matter of capitalising proper names could offer their input where the debate is taking place. Cheers. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 22:08, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Important new RFC at WT:TITLE

Editors may be interested in a new RFC that has just started at WT:TITLE (not to be confused with an earlier RFC, which it appears to make redundant):

• RfC: RM is standard practice for reaching broad consensus for controversial page moves

This RFC affects the standing of WP:RM as the established central resource for dealing with controversial moves; many of those involve MOS provisions, so perhaps the standing of MOS is affected as well.

Noetica^Tea? 10:20, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Capitalization of species names

This sentence caught my eye: "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."

In 2003 a guideline to title all animal articles in all caps was added, and then amended to say bird articles. It turns out that the name of a species capitalizes the first letter only, other than fish and birds. Bird names have the most complicated rules. I would caution against changing "Grizzly Bear" to "grizzly bear" in all cases, because if you are talking about the name of the species, the correct spelling is "Grizzly bear". If you are talking about members of that species, the correct spelling is "grizzly bear". I hope this is about as clear as mud. In the case of birds and fish, ornithologists and ichthyologists use all caps (mostly) when they are talking to themselves - in ornithological articles (Snowy Owl), or ichthyology articles (Rainbow Trout), while normal rules of capitalization use sentence case (rainbow trout). I would caution editors from making changes just for the sake of making changes, especially if it breaks the meaningful use of capitalization, and especially about changing capitalization in bird and fish articles, as different rules apply. Apteva (talk) 21:50, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

OTOH, I would caution against claims of caps being correct. And so would Merriam-Webster.[1]. And before you claim that isn't talking about the species (even though it is), there's also this. Gnomish edits to improve the style and usage of the general encyclopedia are not "for the sake of making changes", especially if it fixes the Improper Use of Capitalization. -- JHunterJ (talk)

Beatles RfC

You are invited to participate in an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/The Beatles on the issue of capitalising the definite article when mentioning that band's name in running prose. This long-standing dispute is the subject of an open mediation case and we are requesting your help with determining the current community consensus. Thank you for your time. For the mediators. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:49, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Military terms: Marines

When referring to individuals who are a member of a branch of service, such as the Marines (ie. members of the United States Marine Corp), should they be referred to as marines or Marines? Apteva (talk) 06:33, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I need help when it comes to capitalizing the word Marine. There is a mini edit-war (but one that is civil and in good faith) going on for the article 1983 Beirut barracks bombing regarding the question of whether or not to capitalize the word "Marine" when referring to members of the U.S. Marine Corps. This article notes that the USMC itself wants the word capitalized, and more and more U.S. print policies (AP, New York Times, etc) are following that policy. However, when I reverted an edit that had changed the word to lower case, PaulinSaudi reverted my revert (so that the article now again shows "marines," not "Marines") with this comment:

00:51, 23 September 2012‎ PaulinSaudi(talk | contribs)‎ . . (48,164 bytes) (0)‎ . . (Undid :revision 514045809 by NearTheZoo. Oddly the Wiki Manual of Style is not in agreement :with the USMC) (undo).

I have searched the wikipedia Manula of Style (section on CAPS and section on Military Terms) but have not found the relevant portion. So-- two questions: (1) where in the Wiki MOS is this issue presented? (2) If PaulinSaudi is correct and the Wiki MOS indicates that the word should NOT be capitalized, how can I make the recommendation that it be changed? Thanks! NearTheZoo (talk) 11:44, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

PS to my note on "Marines": After a very gracious exchange with PaulinSaudi, I have learned that the current Wiki MOS does not strictly prohibit capitalization of "Marine/s," but instead only does not establish capitalization as required. I would like to recommend that the "Military Terms" section in the MOS be changed to establish Wiki style consistent with the rules of style now used by AP, NYT, Chicago Tribune, and others--to capitalize "Marine." Here is the NYT explanation for their 2009 e to begin capitalizing "Marines." Their editors decided that since Marine is a word for a member of a larger organization that is normally capitalized that (like Democrat, Catholic, or Rotarian) the word should be capitalized when referring to individuals within that organization, as well. The NYT change would also apply to "Coastguardsman" (and I assume to "Guardian," the new term that is sometimes used for a member of the USCG), but not for "soldier" or "sailor," since these terms are not directly linked to the capitalized title of the larger organization. For many Marines, this is a matter of pride (a fact also pointed out in the NYT article). I recommend this issue be discussed and (of course) I am on the side of clarifying our MOS to reflect the fact that "Marine" should be capitalized. Thanks! NearTheZoo (talk) 17:41, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

The relevant section is "Thus, the American army, but the United States Army. Unofficial but well-known names should also be capitalized (the Green Berets, the Guard)." It can be tweaked to make it more clear (the distinction between "American army" and "U.S. Army" is about as clear as mud), but I would say that Marine would be just as capitalized as Army or Coast Guard. Apteva (talk) 05:58, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

The relevant section speaks about the corps, not members. "It was decided that the Marines should be participating the operation, so 20 marines were sent", but not It was decided that the Marines should be participating the operation, so 20 Marines were sent", and not "It was decided that the marines should be participating the operation, so 20 marines were sent". — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 10:56, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I can see what they are doing in the article. Where marines appears it is not capitalized just as soldiers would not be capitalized, but where Marine appears it is capitalized as it refers to the branch of service. "220 marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers" is not capitalized, but "Marine landing force" is. Apteva (talk) 06:09, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Probably the best way to resolve this is to open an RfC and see if anyone has any opinions on using 220 Marines, 18 sailors, one Green Beret and three soldiers instead of 220 marines, 18 sailors, one green beret and three soldiers. Apteva (talk) 06:33, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

• Lowercase: I don't see any ambiguity here – the words "marine", "pilot" (just as well as "police officer") should be spelled in lowercase. The New York Times' explanation of their change is pretty convincing in that there is no good reason for capitalization. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 10:50, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

• Capitalization:I am pretty confused by the last comment by Dmitrij D. Carkoff. He says the NY Times article is "convincing," but then he writes that he is convinced there is no good reason for capitalization. Perhaps he meant that the NY Times explanation so "so unconvincing" that it actually convinced him to believe there is "no good reason for capitalization." If that's what he meant, I understand, but just don't agree -- since I see their editor's rationale as convincing: that "Marine" is capitalized when it refers to an individual in the U.S. Marine Corps, just as words like Rotarian, Catholic, or Democrat are capitalized, as members of an organization that would be capitalized. In any event, here is the direct quote from the article:

"We will now capitalize Marine and Marines when referring to individual members of the United States Marine Corps. Under the previous rule, we capitalized references to the service as a whole, but lowercased “marine” in referring to individuals. We used to say, “Three marines were wounded in the fighting.” Now we’ll say, “Three Marines were wounded in the fighting.” (We’ll make a similar change to capitalize “Coast Guardsman,” though that comes up less frequently.)" NearTheZoo (talk) 12:16, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

The word "marine" is possibly only ever used to mean "member of the US Marine corp". Mariner is a general term for sailor, and sailor could be either someone who sails a sailboat or a member of a navy. Many countries have navies, so when Navy is capitalized it refers to one countries navy, which normally would be clear by context or identified. I am not sure that any other country has so many armed forces that they have grouped them into separate forces as the US, although there are certainly countries with a larger army. The US Constitution only allows two branches, Army and Navy, and specifically prohibits a standing army. Apteva (talk) 16:22, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

The current MOS uses "Formal names of military units, including armies". By implication, a member of that formal name would also be capitalized. The Rockettes, A Rockette. No one would use a rockette.[2] This is just a matter of following what sources use, and has nothing to do with military terms, and the entire "Military terms" section can, be deleted, as it adds nothing to the MOS (it has four sections, the first says "Military ranks follow the same capitalization guidelines", the second says proper nouns are capitalized, as does the third and fourth). In the case of marines vs. Marines, after 2009 there were fewer sources that used "marine". Consistency within an article should be maintained, though, and where sources conflict, the most likely choice is used. I say delete the section "Military terms". Apteva (talk) 16:50, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

@Apteva: I actually don't see how the rules for the units make implications about members of units. Per this logic the soldiers of 13th Brigade should be capitalized as Soldiers, which is obviously not the case.

@NearTheZoo: the main rationale NYTimes cites is a preference of consistency in US news media over consistency in prose. While such choice may somehow appear as making sense in US news media (though I don't think it indeed makes sense), it is obviously wrong for international non-profit collaboration effort. I strongly prefer the consistency in text, which is completely incompatible with capitalization scheme "220 Marines, 18 sailors, one Green Beret and three soldiers". — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 18:26, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Czarkoff! One more disagreement: the primary reason for the NY Times change (at least, according to that paper's own explanation) is NOT consistency with other news media, although the editors do admit that the change (capitalizing Marine or Marines) will "also" bring that paper into agreement with other manuals of style, such as that used by the Associated Press (and AP articles are used by papers in many parts of the world). The main reason is consistency in terms of capitalizing members of organizations who take their names from those organizations, when the organization itself is capitalized. The NY Times editors give examples such as Catholics, Rotarians, and Democrats. Unlike soldiers and sailors, Marines take their name from the organization: the U.S. Marine Corps. That's why the NY Times rules show consistency between Marines and Coast Guardsmen on the one hand (capitalizing both), and consistency through non-capitalization when dealing with occupations that do not take their names from organizations, such as soldiers, sailors, pilots, voters, etc. Thanks! NearTheZoo (talk) 18:38, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

One PS to Czarkoff -- re your response to the comment by Apteva. Maybe you're completely separating your response to Apteva from your understanding of the NY Times "rule" -- but in terms of the NY Times rule, soldiers in the 13th Brigade would be referred to as soldiers (not capitalized), but on the other hand, if the members of the 13th Brigade were known as "13th Brigaders," then "Brigaders" should be capitalized. Whether or not you like or agree with the NY Times rationale, it is based on a very consistent approach! Thanks again! NearTheZoo (talk) 19:12, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Though the "taking names from organizations" approach may seem logical, it is merely a workaround for disambiguation between different meanings of the word, which is perfectly valid in context of newspaper (it saves lines), but it isn't applicable here, as we have wikilinks for this level of disambiguation. Anyway, this luckily didn't become a language norm and we are not bound by it, so the ugliness of mixed case in the enumeration of similar objects may be avoid. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 19:48, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

My point was just that - that "soldiers of 13th Brigade" if referred to as "soldiers" would be lower case, and as Brigadiers would be capitalized. The rule though, is not to look in the guideline to see if "soldiers of 13th Brigade" appears, and possibly has a separate rule than say "soldiers of 14th Brigade", but to look in the sources that were used to create the article to see if Brigadiers are capitalized, or if they are called Brigadiers, Brigaders, Brigades, Soldiers, soldiers or who knows what. The Military terms section adds nothing to the MOS and can be deleted. If someone is concerned with "the ugliness of mixed case in the enumeration of similar objects", then the sentence can be re-written as "242 Americans, including 220 Marines and one Green Beret." The words "workaround for disambiguation between different meanings of the word" confuse me, because when writing an article about the iPhone simply capitalizing Apple makes it clear that we are talking about the company, not a fruit. Besides, it would only be wikilinked at its first occurrence, and if Rockette appeared one or a hundred times in an article it would always be capitalized because The Rockettes is a proper name. It is not good writing to use ambiguous language and expect that a wikilink will make it understandable. Apteva (talk) 20:15, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Neither the force nor the members are capitalized unless they refer to a specific organization. So, capitalization like He may tell that to the marines, but the sailors will not believe him or A commission in the marines has been in use since at least 1800. The US Marines and the Royal Marines are capitalized as proper names, but a marine regiment or the marine forces are not. A marine is a soldier in the marines. You may want to capitalize it as a specific title (Marine = member of the US Marines, not just any old marine), but remember that the US armed forces like to capitalize Every Noun to show how Important It Is. It looks like they never made it out of High School, and reinforces the 'dumb grunt' (or is that 'dumb Grunt'?) stereotype. — kwami (talk) 20:37, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

That supposition can not be decided here. There are clearly many editors who prefer to capitalize "Marine" everywhere it appears. I think the clear answer to this RfC is to remove "Military terms" from the MOS. The use of "marine regiment" would appear in the New York times prior to 2009 because of their style guide, but would not appear in the AP story the article was based on, nor in most other publications, which would instead use "Marine regiments consist of Marines who are in the U.S. Marine Corp". The MOS already says all it needs to say - that proper nouns are capitalized, and capital letters are not used for emphasis. In editing a specific article editors need to work out with other editors what the correct capitalization should be, and an RfC there can help if no consensus can be developed. The answer is likely to be sailor is lower case, soldier is lower case, Green Beret is upper case, as is al-Qa'idian, if there was such a term. Capitalizing Marine is requested to give them respect, but respect has nothing to do with the real reason that it is capitalized, just as Democrat or Republican are capitalized - not to show them respect, but because Democratic Party and Republican Party are proper nouns. Apteva (talk) 21:12, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

• This is an obvious – even open-and-shut – case, per existing MOS rules. We must use lower case, except when the title is used with a name, is itself a proper name, or is an acronym. The title is actually generic when not used that way. There are US and foreign merchant marines, and military marines in other countries as well as the US, who are referred to generically and collectively as "marines", just as there are air forces and air force lieutenants within them, by contrast with the U.S. Air Force and a U.S. Air Force Lieutenant (but not a U.S. Air Force Pilot which isn't a real title, but a description of partial job duties). It has to be modified by a preceding name, e.g. U.S. Marine, or a following name, e.g. Marine Johnson (or in certain formal/tabular contexts Johnson, Marine but not in running text, as in "said Johnson, Marine since 1991"). In the first case, U.S. Marine is an abbreviation of a U.S. Marine Corps serviceman; in the later case, it would be capitalized anyway as a job title, as in "said FooBar corporation Vice-president Gutierrez", per WP:MOSCAPS. That Johnson's real official title is actually "PFC" is irrelevant; an abbreviated stand-in is always capitalized when used with a name: "Gutierrez's new title is FooBar V.-president", and Vice-pres. Gutierrez and even Veep Gutierrez, plus of course VP Gutierrez. "Marine Johnson" used unbroken as Title Name is such an abbreviation, in this case of U.S. Marine Johnson, itself an abbreviation of U.S. Marine Corp PFC Johnson, itself an abbreviation, in turn, of United States Marine Corp Private First Class Emil Xander Johnson, Jr, [USMC serial number here]). Per MOS, we don't capitalize when the title and name are separated, as in Gutierrez, the new vice-president or "vice-president of the company since July, Gutierrez" (unless the title is given as an acronym or itself is/contains a proper noun: (Gutierrez is the VP, "Gutierrez also served as a New Mexico State Court judge"), thus Johnson the marine, "a marine since 1991, Johnson...". NB: We also do not capitalize things that are not titles, or abbreviations thereof, when used with names, e.g. Divisional Sub-boss Gutierrez, or State-level Judge Gutierrez (which should be state-level judge Gutierrez not state-level Judge Gutierrez here, as judge in this case is part of a longer phrase that is a writer's replacement for, not abbreviation of, the title, as would be judiciary politician Gutierrez, just like pilot Campbell for USAF LT Campbell).

  It's really cut and dry, and this dispute is simply another case of the WP:Specialist style fallacy, one in which certain editors are emotionally but fallaciously invested in the idea that Marine in references to the U.S. Marine Corp must always be capitalized as a matter of pride. We don't all have the right to shout Semper Fi!, however. [And thanks for your service; I come from a military family.] PS: Note also that the proper spelling is "vice-president" (vice- is a prefix, not a word in this context); Vice President of the United States is a US political term of art (and pride). Many US-based companies have become confused (not being usually populated with grammarians) and aped this style, but it's an incorrect usage when it doesn't refer to the VPotUS. Wikipedia should always spell the corporate job title hyphenated regardless of the company's internal usage, just as we always spell president correctly, even if a company insists that they have a "Prezident". PPS: Bonus points for anyone who understands why I used quotation marks in "actually 'PFC'" instead of using actually ''PFC''.

  — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 09:58, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

  That advice fails to recognize that we do capitalize Rotarian, Democrat, Republican, so why not Marine? It is in fact common practice to capitalize Green Beret and Marine, not for someone who is a merchant marine, but someone who is a U.S. Marine, and therefore our MOS should reflect that fact. If other countries have a marine corp and choose to capitalize their marines, we would certainly expect to follow suit. But if they do not, like merchant marine, then lower case would be more suitable. I would suggest looking at sources and finding out what they use. Apteva (talk) 15:53, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

As an international encyclopedia, we shouldn't be using "Marines" as an abbreviation for a particular country's marine corps. But I agree that as such an abbreviation I would expect it to be capitalized. — kwami (talk) 18:03, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

To clarify the point about "if other countries have a marine corps...", I think it's worth confirming that there are, indeed, many marine corps outside the US. Many have other titles, and so are not relevant here, but, by my count there's at least sixteen other "Marine Corps" than the American version. Judging from their website the Royal Marines do tend to capitalise (although not uniformly), but, in the vast majority of cases they prefer the more specific term "Royal Marine" anyway, which I assume we all agree would be capitalised. My recommendation would be to use "U.S. Marine" when you mean a member of the U.S. Marine Corps, rather than the shorter, and more generic term. The term "marine", to my mind, falls into the same category as "soldier" or "sailor", since it's a generic term used by many different countries and organisations. This obviously differ from the NYT's opinion, but then they're a national newspaper, not an international encyclopaedia. Anaxial (talk) 18:52, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

I prefer the NYT/AP/whatever style of capitalization according to the style the organization uses when referring to the organization or its members. There are some potential ambiguities solved by this approach. A marine assault may be something completely different from a Marine assault. I don't think this capitalization rule should apply, however, in a specific case: when referring to an armed force as an army or navy in a generic way, even if the only possible referent is one country's army or navy. For example: He enlisted in the U.S. Army but The army trudged across the desert. and The Cypriot Navy conducted drills but the navy assaulted positions in the south. --Batard0 (talk) 13:41, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

I seem to have caused all this excitement. For some reason, and for quitre some time, I have been demoting common nouns when I find them set with a captial. I suppose everyone has their pet peeve. Please be assured I have no desire to pay anthing but full respect to marines (and soldiers, and sailors). It seems we ought to have a clear-cut rule. Frankly I do not care what that rule might be. If I learned to accept full stops outside quotes, I can learn to use an upper case M in marine. I would ask someone to send me a message on my talk page should the policy be changed. I would then be happy to enforce it. Paul, in Saudi (talk) 07:47, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Hyphenated titles

At "Composition titles", the MOSCAPS says in part:

In the English titles of compositions (books and other print works, songs and other audio works, films and other visual media works, paintings and other artworks, etc.), every word is given an initial capital except for certain less important words...

In hyphenated terms, capitalize each part according to the applicable rule (generally, that which follows a hyphen is not capitalized unless it is a proper name).

I take "capitalize each part" to be saying that a title like The Tell-Tale Heart should have three capital T's, the same as if it would if it was spelled The Tell Tale Heart, rather than two as in The Tell-tale Heart, because "Tale" is treated as a separate "part" and is not one of the "less important words". This makes sense and I'm confident that it describes common practice today for hyphenated titles in English. However, what I don't understand is what the parenthetical "generally" means. All I can think is that it refers to capitalization outside of titles — the way we write Tell-tale signs of trouble appeared. rather than Tell-Tale signs of trouble appeared.. But if that is it, then it doesn't belong in this section.

Would someone please either clarify what this parenthetical note is about, or else delete it? In either case, examples would be welcome. --142.205.241.254 (talk) 22:50, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't make sense to me as it is written. However, the reference to proper names makes me think it should read "The part following a prefix (e.g.re, pre, or anti) is not capitalized unless it is proper noun or a proper adjective)", which is the rule given by Chicago. Examples (from CMS): "Self-Sustaining Reactions" (because "self" is not a prefix) and "Non-Christian Religions (because Christian is a proper adjective) but "Anti-intellectual Pursuits" and "Strategies for Re-establishment (becaue anti and re are prefixes). --Boson (talk) 23:27, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

(Original poster at a different IP address) Okay, nobody's produced a way that it makes sense. My guess is that the words escaped from an unrelated context, like capitalization of Wikipedia article titles: if those were WP articles they'd be "downstyled" as "Self-sustaining reactions", "Anti-intellectual pursuits", and "Non-Christ ian religions". Here we're talking about titles of compositions, which follow a traditional "upstyle" even in WP. I see that the articles The Tell-Tale Heart, The In-Laws (1979 film), and The Out-of-Towners (1970 film) all capitalize "each part according to the applicable rule". I'm going to delete the parenthetical part. --50.100.189.5 (talk) 05:17, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Capitalization of original titles

Again on the subject of "compositions of titles", the fact that rules for titles are being given implies that WP style takes precedence over respecting the capitalization of titles as used in the original work. For example, if the original title was .....one of our aircraft is missing or Butterflies are Free, in WP they are to appear as ......One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (although in fact that title seems to have lost its leading ellipsis as well) and as Butterflies Are Free (as here).

This policy makes sense because it produces a consistent style through a list of titles and because it's the sort of thing that other style guides call for as well. But it is still a modification of original text, so I think the MOSCAPS should explicitly point this out, in the same way that the main MOS explicitly covers what are "allowable typographical changes" in quotations.

P.S. The CAPTCHA that I had to pass to post the links in this section was "argueoften". Is that an imperative or a description of me? :–) --142.205.241.254 (talk) 23:06, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Stage names of South Korean K-pop musical groups/bands/musicians

From what I've just read, "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." Therefore, since the names of K-pop musical groups/bands/musicians are usually capitalized, I am requesting an addition of K-Pop bands to be included in the list of exceptions to the "unnecessary capitalization" rule.

• Example 1: Wikipedia lists the South Korean K-pop group Big Bang with small letters according to the no "unnecessary capitalization" rule. But the band's stage name is "BIGBANG" and many other respectable sources including Rolling Stone, The Guardian, Billboard, Metro News, Vancouver Observer, etc , have used "BIGBANG" instead of "Big Bang"

• Example 2: Wikipedia lists the South Korean K-pop group Exo with small letters according to the no "unnecessary capitalization" rule. But the band's stage name is "EXO" and many other respectable sources including The New Yorker, Billboard, Grantland, etc, have used "EXO" instead of "Exo"

• Example 3: Wikipedia lists the South Korean K-pop musician Psy with small letters according to the no "unnecessary capitalization" rule. But the band's stage name is "PSY" and many other respectable sources including Time Magazine, The Washington Post, The New York Times, ABC News, and The United Nations, etc, have used "PSY" instead of "Psy"

• Example 4: Wikipedia lists the South Korean K-pop group Shinee with small letters according to the no "unnecessary capitalization" rule. But the band's stage name is "SHINee" and many other respectable sources including The New Yorker, The Associated Press, ITN News, The New York Times, etc, have used "SHINee" instead of "Shinee"

Of course, Wikipedia's rules can be overridden as per WP:IGNORE, but Im just wondering if it would be a good idea to explicitly add an exception and allow the article names of South Korean K-pop bands and musicians to be capitalized according to their stage name since its more frequently used in proper English? -A1candidate (talk) 15:57, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

UPDATE: Since nobody has said anything yet, Im thinking of adding the following new section :

• Stage names

Stage names of musicial groups and K-pop bands in particular are capitalized in accordance with standard usage.

Incorrect: Big Bang

Correct: BIGBANG

Incorrect: Exo

Correct: EXO

Incorrect: Shinee

Correct: SHINee

Incorrect: Will I am

Correct: will.i.am

If anyone has any suggestions/feedback/objections, please let me know! -A1candidate (talk) 18:04, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, since its almost a month and nobody has voiced any objections/suggestions, I've made the following edit, so please discuss it here if you any feedback -A1candidate (talk) 15:31, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

So I just reverted your change; thanks for being bold. As far as I can tell, this goes against several other MOS guidelines. I'm not necessarily opposed to your change, but I think it does at least deserve more attention. Personally, I think "standard usage" is a good standard, but hard to define. I rather like "regular and established use in reliable third party sources". -- Irn (talk) 16:36, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I understand that "regular and established third party sources" would be more precise than simply "standard usage", but I personally think WP:MOSTM isn't a well written guideline that reflects what is normally used in most sources. For example the article "will.i.am", seems to ignore Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Trademarks#Trademarks_that_begin_with_a_lowercase_letter, not to mention the fact that a stage name (which is also a Pseudonym and therefore sort of like a "second name") shouldnt be classified as a trademark -A1candidate (talk) 17:09, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I got the "regular and established" bit from WP:Manual_of_Style/Proper_names#Personal_names, which applies to will.i.am (in terms of the non-capitalization of the 'w', anyway). There was a lot of discussion (and a lot of resistance) that went into carving out that exception. Now, the proposal is to expand that exception to include not just individuals but also bands and not just initial lower-case but also all-caps and other orthographic irregularities. Considering the discussions when making the lower-case exception, it seemed to me that such a change should have more discussion. (And that we should then make the appropriate change to WP:MOSMUSIC and WP:ALLCAPS.) -- Irn (talk) 18:20, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Well I've waited a month now, hoping for someone to join in the discussion but it seems nobody cares. Its EXTREMLY frustrating to have to go to every single article and point out more than 10 authoritative sources on the Internet which blatantly DO NOT conform to Wikipedia's rigid rules and guidlines, only to see fellow editors reject everything and simply point back to the same inflexible Wikipedia guideline. -A1candidate (talk) 21:50, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

WILL.I.AM is in fact a registered trademark (the uspto.gov database ignores case, apparently). He says several registrations for goods, and this one for his services as a performer:

Word Mark	 WILL.I.AM
Goods and Services	IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: ENTERTAINMENT SERVICES, NAMELY, LIVE MUSICAL PERFORMANCES 
 BY A MALE ARTIST; AND FASHION DESIGNER. FIRST USE: 19890630. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19890630
Standard Characters Claimed	
Mark Drawing Code	(4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK
Trademark Search Facility Classification Code	NOTATION-SYMBOLS Notation Symbols such as Non-Latin characters,punctuation and mathematical signs,zodiac signs,prescription marks
Serial Number	77666402
Filing Date	February 9, 2009
Current Basis	1A
Original Filing Basis	1A
Published for Opposition	 August 25, 2009
Date Amended to Current Register	 July 20, 2009
Registration Number	3707981
Registration Date	November 10, 2009
Owner	(REGISTRANT) ADAMS, WILLIAM INDIVIDUAL UNITED STATES 450 N. Roxbury Drive, 8th Floor 
 c/o Hertz & Lichtenstein, LLP Beverly Hills CALIFORNIA 90210
Attorney of Record	Jill M. Pietrini, Esq.
Type of Mark	SERVICE MARK
Register	PRINCIPAL
Other Data	The name(s), portrait(s), and/or signature(s) shown in the mark identifies a living individual
 whose consent(s) to register is of record.
Live/Dead Indicator	LIVE

erm...I dont quite understand what all that stuff above is supposed mean, but my point is that Wikipedia should list names according to proper usage in reliable sources, and not according to its own rigid rules. -A1candidate (talk) 10:36, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Over

Hello,

the correct way to write this album is: Bridge Over Troubled Water. The album's liner notes among other sources write the "Over" in uppercase. So, why does Wikipedia create such odd rules and propose to write incorrectly? Regards.--Tomcat (7) 21:20, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

And other sources use "over" in lowercase, which is not incorrect. We propose to write with stylistic consistency. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:49, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Uhm, so you are basically saying that unreliable sources are the same as reliable sources? Suggest you read WP:V. Really, why do most of the reviews write it Bridge Over Troubled Water? Regards.--Tomcat (7) 11:35, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Uhm, no, that's not what I was basically saying. Suggest you read again. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:15, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

You haven't proofed me that reliable sources use Bridge over Troubled Water. Also what about WP:COMMONNAME?--Tomcat (7) 12:58, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

This isn't a sourcing issue, it's a style issue. And as editors of this publication, we are required to follow the in-house style. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:05, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't follow your logic. The guideline is about how the article should be titled. And it states that inacurrate titles are to be avoided.--Tomcat (7) 13:11, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

It's not an inaccurate title. The wording is not in dispute, the styling is the only issue. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:18, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Apostrophes

As an encyclopaedia, and therefore somewhere that should have impeccable grammar. Surly unless a place name specifically doesn't have an apostrophe, ie it never has or it has had its name officially changed, then Wikipedia should always include the apostrophe, even if it's drifted out of use? Theofficeprankster (talk) 11:23, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

See WP:OFFICIALNAME and WP:COMMONNAME. Surely, Wikipedia should use the common name, which would be the one that lacks an apostrophe if the apostrophe is no longer in common use. Also, the "Capital letters" talk page may not be the best choice for discussing punctuation. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:48, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

So basically if something is done wrong enough, it becomes true? Theofficeprankster (talk) 21:09, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

The talk pages of the two guidelines above would be the place to try and build consensus for switching to linguistic prescription. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:21, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Is "like" to be capitalized?

Blue Like Jazz or Blue like Jazz? A recent series of moves suggests it's the latter but I have never seen it in lower case. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:26, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

As an adverb, it should be capitalized. The recent series of moves may have mistaken it for a preposition. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/like#Adverb vs. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/like#Preposition. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:06, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Maybe there should be an sub-rule for adverb-y prepositions. Prepositions that can be modified by "more" or "most" seem well-suited to capitalization. "Blue More Like Jazz", "Blue Most Like Jazz" (vs. "One Flew More over the Cuckoo's Nest", "One Flew Most over the Cuckoo's Nest"). -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:17, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't know the rule and was loath to undo the change. You'll see the editor made several other, similar changes. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:36, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi. I was the editor. Looks like I was a bit too bold with the move. However, I am reading "like" as a preposition in this title, comparing "Blue" and "Jazz" versus "like" further describing blue (Close to blue, almost blue, blue-like), but I believe it would be hyphenated in that case. From what I can see, "like" is rarely used on its own as an adverb, mostly in colloquial speech as outlined in Like. The use of the word in this title does not seem to be one of those indicated. BOVINEBOY2008 20:04, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Then it would be correctly titled "Blue, like Jazz". --Walter Görlitz (talk) 01:11, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

OK, there's some sort of disconnect here. I would always capitalize the word over in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and our articles on both the novel and the film agree. If the MoS doesn't, then the MoS must change, because capitalizing over is correct. --Trovatore (talk) 22:15, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

But see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=One_Flew_Over_the_Cuckoo%27s_Nest_(film)&diff=226988208&oldid=226922250 and http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=One+Flew+over+the%2COne+Flew+Over+the&year_start=1950&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share= and http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/health/report-on-eva-peron-recalls-time-when-lobotomy-was-embraced.html?_r=0 . It's not a question of "correct" (they are both "correct"), it's a question of style. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:40, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I strenuously object to any style recommendation that would not capitalize over in a title. --Trovatore (talk) 23:51, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

And what does that mean, exactly, since this isn't a courtroom? -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:05, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

It looks very very wrong. I was taught that the only words you don't capitalize are the "unimportant" ones, essentially the ones that have no content. A, an, the, and, or, but, maybe nor; that's about it. I think that will be the expectation of a majority of readers. --Trovatore (talk) 00:11, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

(Oh, I guess maybe a few very simple prepositions too: of, with, from, to. Nothing much more unusual or specific than those. --Trovatore (talk) 00:28, 13 November 2012 (UTC) )

US Supreme Court members

In their article intros, should the members of the US Supreme Court have their offices capitalized or not? Former members, aswell as current members. GoodDay (talk) 05:24, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

How about a link or something less elliptical? Dicklyon (talk) 05:56, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Here's an example change at the Elena Kagan article. -- GoodDay (talk) 06:34, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

If you look for such phrases in books, you find a mix. Per MOS:CAPS, WP style would suggest lower case (like this). Dicklyon (talk) 06:48, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it doesn't matter what books say as Wikipedia uses its own MOS. In this instance, there's no ambiguity. Lowercase is required by MOS:CAPS. As for GoodDay's claim that other articles do it wrong, WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS is no justification for having it wrong in these articles, and this is an instance where I changed it to lowercase, yet GoodDay insisted on reverting, despite the guideline.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:17, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I went with capitalization, due to the presidents, vice presidents, cabinet members bio articles, etc etc. GoodDay (talk) 07:11, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Also, many of the former AJs bio articles also use capitalization. GoodDay (talk) 16:51, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Bridge over Troubled Water vs Bridge Over Trouble Water

Anyone have anything to add at Talk:Bridge_over_Troubled_Water#Requested_move_2 --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:50, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Star Trek into Darkness vs Star Trek Into Darkness

Anyone have anything to add at Talk:Star Trek into Darkness#Into vs into --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:50, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Till vs. till

Additional input is welcome at Talk:From Dusk till Dawn#Requested move. --87.79.133.209 (talk) 16:27, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

4-letter prepositions in composition titles

WP:CT is clear that only prepositions of five letters or more should have their first letter capitalized, but I've never seen an uncapitalized four-letter preposition in a title that didn't look wrong. The aforementioned Star Trek RM touches on this; it's definitely against CT, but it just looks sloppy and doesn't appear that way in most sources. I'm not the type to prefer source styling over MOS styling, though, so would anyone be amenable to expanding CT to capitalize four-letter prepositions? And don't tell me how much work that would entail—just whether it would be right or wrong, please. --BDD (talk) 17:33, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

It would suffer from the same problem with different words, such as "with" and "from" (View from the Top, It Came from Beneath the Sea, The Man with the Golden Gun, etc.) I think an explicit list is in order if the rule is to be changed, capitalizing some four-letter prepositions and leaving others uncapitalized. Maybe even capitalize some three-letter prepositions, as we already do in 33⅓ Revolutions Per Monkee. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:40, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Glad to see someone's talking about this. We've digressed on the "Into" argument regarding Star Trek, and we've opened a whole new can of worms. If, as some sources are suggesting, "into" becomes part of a phrasal verb, should it be capitalised according to the MOS? As far as we can see, it should. If that is the case, there are many articles (see a massive list of examples in the Star Trek discussion, some of which qualify) that may also need the "into" capitalised. Might it be wise for us to discuss the existence of phrasal verbs, and how this affects capitalisation? drewmunn (talk) 12:56, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Can you provide an example of a phrasal verb using "into"? (The Star Trek problem, IMO, is not one of phrasal-verbness, but instead stems from the use of a subtitle "Into Darkness" without the normal colon or dash or other indication; clever marketing, perhaps, but lousy style; as a sentence, "Star trek into darkness" doesn't work so well, so "Star Trek into Darkness" doesn't either, but neither does "Star Trek Into Darkness"; I'd go with "Star Trek: Into Darkness", and ignore their marketing style. But I realize that perspective is probably just one of many in that discussion.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:08, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Crash into Me and I'm into Something Good are two examples of the word being used as particles of the verb and should be capitalized, but aren't. There are many more. I also found Run Into the Light as one example of "into" being capitalized in a title, yet I'm not really sure it should be since it does look like it's being used as a preposition there. --DocNox (talk) 23:55, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Whay should "Crash into Me" be capitalised? I don't think this is a phrasal verb. The verb is "to crash", "into" is just the preposition. Not sure about "I'm into Something Good" though - maybe in this context "to be into" is a phrasal verb. "Run into the Light" shouldn't be capitalised though, unless it is about a chance encounter with the light! --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:00, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Be careful as to what is a phrasal verb and what isn't. "Trek into" wouldn't be a phrasal verb. In this example, "trek" is the verb, and "into" the preposition. However, "run into", as in accidentally meet some one, would be a phrasal verb, and in this example "into" should be capitalised in a composition title. However if you "ran into" a shop to get something, this is not a phrasal verb. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:10, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

The fact is it can be interpreted either way and without context we have no way of knowing which is really meant. I doubt the filmmakers even thought about it this much. --DocNox (talk) 23:55, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

The purpose of Wikipedia: think deeply over decisions made in a split second. It's a bit like taking a literature qualification again. drewmunn (talk) 07:22, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

As far as a general phrasal verb goes, "trek into" isn't one. I'm not talking about specifically Star Trek - that's a more complicated problem. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:00, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Having read what you've put forward so far, it's straightened stuff out for me a little more. I agree now that "trek into" in it's pure form probably can't be a phrasal verb; as you say, it doesn't really have extra meaning when combined. "Star Trek Into", however, probably could be, if you take it to mean the franchise gets dark. However, as you said, that complex and not really for this discussion. I know it's simplistic and probably too broad, but as suggested earlier by BDD, could we expand CT to cover "Into"? As suggested by JHunterJ, I don't think all 4-letter prepositions need CT, but some, specifically "into" could probably do with it. It would deal with all cases without the argument on a case-by-case basis. drewmunn (talk) 09:11, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

But what would be the justification for tmaking a special exception for "into"? Surely it should follow the same rules as every other preposition. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:15, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Other than avoiding arguments such as the Star Trek one, I have nothing. drewmunn (talk) 09:17, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

The suggestion at WT:MOS#WP:NCCAPS → "shorter than five letters" rule is to abandon the letter-counting approach to preposition capitalization and instead identify which prepositions get capitalized and which don't. It wouldn't be a "special exception" for any of them. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:30, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of that discussion, but I'm against the proposed changes! --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:42, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

The current letter-focused guideline causes many problems and needs improvement. Whether we have special exceptions to letter-counting or skip the letter count entirely yields the same result. What's the downside? -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:54, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I've just looked through the proposal, and think that, with a little refinement, it'd be a major improvement over the current system. drewmunn (talk) 13:58, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

If it is an established system of usage of the English language, then it's fine, but editors seem to be cobbling together rules based on examples given on other websites, rather than respecting long established guidelines of usage. We should be discussing which guideline to follow in these cases, not make up our own. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:05, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Our manual of style is indeed assembled by editors, but we're not basing it on examples from other websites (although we are using other websites as well as other sources to inform the guidelines). -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:53, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I remember some rule from somewhere (sorry, that's not helpful to anyone), that prepositions with more than one syllable should be capitalized. Thus, "from" and "with" (examples given above) are both one syllable long, while "into" (the other example from above), "wherefore" (although, this exceeds WP's 5-letter rule) are two syllables and should be capitalized. Would this be helpful in this debate, and would it be a helpful rule in Wikipedia MOS? The word "into" is unusual for being two syllables rather than one for its letter length. Also, does anyone know where this rule comes from? — al-Shimoni (talk) 02:27, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

A follow-up on my last (and perhaps my last comment and this should be moved to a separate thread of its own). I was looking at other four-letter English prepositions. "Upon" is a four letter preposition, but two syllables, and I noticed that it is, so-far that I have observed, consistently capitalized in wiki articles (for example, the multiple "Once Upon a Time" articles). Four-letter two-syllable prepositions include: amid (a+mid), atop (a+top), into (a shortened compound preposition), onto (shortened compound preposition), over, unto (formed by analogy of "until", a shortened compound preposition), and upon (a shortened compound preposition). The reason I point out the shortened compound prepositions is that WP asks to capitalize the first word of compound prepositions (regardless of length). That they are shortened forms, however, makes that WP rule no longer applicable (at least, as currently written). But, it seems that since 1) all the two-syllable four-letter prepositions (except over) appear to come from compounds, and 2) their two-syllable nature seems to make them want to be capitalized (and there seems to be a rule somewhere that says one should capitalize such — see previous comment by me), then a rule could easily and reasonably be created to say they should be capitalized. As a note, there are no three or shorter letter prepositions with more than one syllable.

Proposal: Perhaps we should amend the sentence in the article which says "Prepositions that contain five letters or more (During, Through, About, Until, etc.)" to read as "Prepositions that contain five letters or more (During, Through, About, Until, etc.), or more than one syllable."

Thoughts?

— al-Shimoni (talk) 03:17, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I like it – and I don't: there are problems. Would you mind if I copied this whole section (or parts of it) over to the ["older", longer] discussion at WT:MoS and replied to you there? That way, everything would be centrally in one place – and a place where probably more people stop by than here. – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 23:32, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I haven't had time to read this through thoroughly, but from your last comment, I think we're getting somewhere. I agree with your observation of compound prepositions, and I think it warrants a look into. As for your proposal, I think it covers the purpose well. It may need some streamlining, but in essence I think it's good. drewmunn (talk) 12:30, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

I only just now noticed this section deals with the same issue I first brought up last November here. Everyone's input over there obviously welcome. (Crossed out because I realized the discussion I started is already mentioned and linked further up by JHunterJ. The invitation to head over to and join me at that WT:MoS section obviously still stands. Sorry for the redundancy.) – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 19:42, 27 January 2013 (UTC) (ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 22:57, 28 January 2013 (UTC))

Is there an established style guideline that supports the theory that a two-syllable preposition is a compound preposition, or is this just synthesis? --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:13, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Except for "over", all the English 4 letter prepositions that I've seen have been shortened/contracted compounds. But being shortened, they are no longer two distinct words, thus the WP:MOS rule about a compound preposition may not apply. "Over" — from every source I have seen — originates as a single preposition (cognate to German "über"). The list of two-syllable four-letter prepositions is quite short (listed above). There are no two-syllable three-letter, 2-syll two-letter, nor (obviously) 2-syll single-letter prepositions. Capitalizing 5+ letter preps, or 2+ syllable preps would cover much of the words in dispute. — al-Shimoni (talk) 06:35, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Again, would the contributors here mind if I copied this over to WT:MoS, so we'd have everything in one place? I and others could just comment on your points there and link to here to get the context, but this would obviously be very cumbersome. Since I'd copy, not cut, you still could continue debating here if that's what you prefer, but I don't know if my action would be considered impolite or seen as an attempt to hijack your thread. Thoughts? – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 09:32, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm all for copying it over, and nobody seems to be against it, so go ahead. Stick a referral link in here so we can get to the other conversation and hopefully get things moving on both fronts. drewmunn talk 10:00, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

debate continued here.

Scripture(s)?

Any thoughts on whether scripture and scriptures ought to be capitalised when used in reference to the scripture of a specific religious tradition. I notice that in some Christian-related articles that scripture is capitalised. This doesn't seem correct to me in accordance with WP's style policies but I am reluctant to change it. Thanks, Afterwriting (talk) 16:05, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

It appears to be capitalized (or at least capitalizeable) when used in that situation. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scripture -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:34, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I would guess that in general scripture should not be capitalized. I always try to avoid what looks like honorary capital letters. For instance, when one is talking about their own church, they will often capitalize it (i.e. The Church) as if it were a proper noun, but that type of capitalization isn't appropriate for encyclopedic writing. ~Adjwilley (talk) 22:18, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Capitalize internet?

Should Internet be capitalized or lowercase? Is there a guideline on this somewhere? I did a quick search of this page and couldn't find anything, so if there is a rule, it should probably be added. ~Adjwilley (talk) 22:12, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't know if there's an official guideline, but there's an article (Capitalization of "Internet")! So I'd say it doesn't matter, just as both email and e-mail are acceptable. Unless the distinction is important for meaning, use whichever form you prefer. I personally agree with the sentiment expressed in that article: "Many publications today disregard the historical development and use the term in its common noun spelling, arguing that it has become a generic medium of communication." --BDD (talk) 22:17, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I personally agree with the common noun form, but it's good to know there's no guideline (yet). ~Adjwilley (talk) 02:50, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

This has been discussed extensively in various places in WP, and the result, as I understand it, is that we capitalize the Internet, but not an internet, if you get my drift. Here's a discussion from way back in 2004: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive (capitalization)#Capitalisation of 'I' in Internet and 'W' on World Wide Web, when it seemed pretty unsettled. Here's one I settled in 2011: Talk:Internet protocol suite#Capitalization in "internet layer", after capitalization of the Internet was pretty well ingrained. Probably it's not in a guideline, but I'd regard it as settled by consensus. Dicklyon (talk) 03:58, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Here is one of my favorite linguist authorities on this question. Normally, I'm a downcaser, but I think the case for capitalizing the Internet is pretty good. Dicklyon (talk) 04:06, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

A posteriori or A Posteriori

What is correct? I know that "A posteriori" is Latin phrase, and the word "posteriori" is not capitalised. But what about the name of the album? A Posteriori, Enigma album. I think, the name should be A posteriori (album). Nicolas Love (talk) 07:37, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't see anything subtle here. The Latin phrase should be lowercase, of course (even the a should be lowercase unless it starts a sentence). But the album title is a proper name, so it's uppercase. This is perfectly standard. --Trovatore (talk) 09:19, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

the God of Israel or the god of Israel

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

We've had a discussion at Talk:Books of Kings about whether the word god gets a capital G here. The full sentence as it stands is "Kings begins with the death of David, to whom Yahweh, the God of Israel, has promised an eternal dynasty, and the succession of his son Solomon." It seems pretty clear to me that 'god' here is a common noun, especially as the proper noun Yahweh is given, but I'm being told "Appending the phrase "of Israel" converts it into a proper noun that is always capitalized." and "Have you checked the MoS? "In a biblical context, God is capitalized only when it refers to the Judeo-Christian deity". When we add "of Israel", we are referring to a specific entity, which calls for capitalization." Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 17:16, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree it should be capitalized. I don't see any reason why two alternative names requiring capitalization occurring close together is a reason to drop capitalization of one: "The Prince of Wales, as Duke of Cornwall....". Johnbod (talk) 17:32, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Their proximity makes no difference. The question is whether the word "god" in this context is a proper noun (i.e. "the God of Israel" as the name of the Christian god) or a common noun (i.e. "the god of Israel" as opposed to the god of Babylon or the gods of Olympus). -- Irn (talk) 22:52, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

The MOS doesn't specify that we must capitalize it every time we refer to the god of Christianity but rather only then. If it were a title, I would argue for capitalization, but I see it as a modifier distinguishing Yahweh from any other god. The use of the definite article marks the difference for me, but I don't think it's very clear cut. For example, I would make the same argument for "Barack Obama, the president of the United States" versus "Barack Obama, President of the United States". A quick google search reveals that this book agrees with me: "If titles are modified they behave as ordinary nouns, which is usually marked by the fact that they are not capitalised. Thus we have the president of the United States, Ronald Reagan, but President Ronald Reagan." However, this introduces a little more ambiguity: "The definite article may be omitted before (appositive) nouns that indicate a unique role or task; i.e., when they imply that only one person holds the particular position. Note: The general tendency is toward not using the article. E.g., ... John F. Kennedy was (the) President of the United States in 1961." -- Irn (talk) 18:10, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Capitalized, as it is in this recent news article: "The major theme of the Bible's narrative is the loyalty of Judah, and especially its kings, to 'Yahweh', the God of Israel, and their rejection of idolatry.. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:39, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

If "Yahweh, the God of Israel" is capitalised, then "Marduk, the God of Babylon," should also be capitalised. That just looks odd. A little further on in the same paragraph in the lead to Books of Kings it mentions "kings of Judah", which looks right - and Kings of Judah would look wrong.

It might be helpful to look at the reason why the phrase "God/god of Israel" is mentioned. It's there because the para is trying to make the point that Israel's god had a name, Yahweh, and Yahweh was credited in the Book of Kings with taking special care of Israel. It's important to refer to Yahweh and not just say "God" because the concept was different: the ancient Israelites didn't deny the existence of other gods like Marduk and Asherah, just their importance. Theren were many gods, they all had names, some of them were in charge of specific countries (Marduk had Babylon), and Yahweh was the god of ISrael. This is quyite different from the modern Jewish and Christian concept of a single divine being. It's also different from the Christian concpet of a God who has no name at all (not for Jews - Jews still credit God with a name, although it must never be pronounced or written in full). So, the god of Israel, not God of Israel. PiCo (talk) 01:23, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

This shouldn't difficult to grasp. Just try to remember that Israel doesn't have a god; Israel has a God. Even when used as an adjective, it's still a proper noun, thus it's capitalized. Consider this illustration: "I know two guys named Jeff. Jeff Smith and Jeff Jones." Using PiCo's logic, he wouldn't capitalize the first instance of "Jeff" because it isn't directly applied to a specific person. I think we can all agree that would be incorrect. ► Belchfire-TALK 03:07, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

On that argument we have to capitalise the God of Babylon. "I know two gods named Yahweh and Marduk.Yahweh is the God of Israel and Marduk is the God of Babylon." PiCo (talk) 04:13, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Pico here. We shouldn't use different capitalization for different religions. If people are insisting we should they need to take this up at NPOVN. Israel has a god. Seriously, we can't discrimate among religions. JHunterJ, the Daily Mail isn't the way we determine our guidelines. Dougweller (talk) 11:48, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

This argument only holds up if the name of the god of Babylon was actually "God" in English. But since the god of Babylon is actually named something else, "god" isn't being used as a proper noun in that case. Seriously, this isn't that hard to grok. There's no discrimination, only a quirk of language. ► Belchfire-TALK 11:55, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

No, it doesn't, not unless we favor one religion over another, which we shouldn't. "God" is capitalized because it's a title, like "President". The question is whether "Yahweh, the G/god of Israel" is a title. I would capitalize "Yahweh, God of Israel" but not "Yahweh, the god of Israel". The latter is simply an identification, no different from the Marduk example: "Marduk, God of Babylon" vs "Marduk, the god of Babylon".

Sometimes is feels like a title even with the 'the': his heart was turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel. Okay, I can accept that. (Though would we capitalize those words if it were Marduk?) Same with the national god, Yahweh the God of Israel. But we certainly shouldn't capitalize seven names for the god of Israel.

As for the original question, I think the context is "(Yahweh being the God of Israel)"? Yes, that is simply a descriptive phrase, and capitalizing it would be biased.

If the MOS really says we can only capitalize the Christian god, as s.o. said above, it's just wrong. We speak of capital-gee "God" in many religions – Hinduism, for example. Any place it's used as a title. — kwami (talk) 12:10, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Let's try a thought experiment. Would we say "There are two guys named 'Jeff' standing over there, but I'm referring to the 'jeff' on the left." Or would we say "I'm referring to the 'Jeff' on the left"? Obviously, the second quote is correct, because "Jeff" is a proper noun. If we reformulate the example, I think we can agree that we wouldn't write "I'm referring to the Man on the left". This is analogous to the "god of Babylon" example, wherein "god" is not a name or a title, but merely a noun.

In any event, the MoS is policy and it pretty clearly states that the word "god" is not capitalized in the phrase "god of Babylon". The MoS isn't wrong, some people just have trouble accepting and/or understanding it. Religious intolerance takes many forms, I'm afraid. ► Belchfire-TALK 12:33, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Your example is confused. "God" is a common noun. It is capitalized when used as a title, just as any noun would: "You're the Man!", or "Jeff, Man of the Year". That has nothing to do with whether there is one Jeff or two, or one man or two.

BTW, there is nothing in the MOS that says we should cap "god of Israel" or that we should not cap "God of Babylon". This has been clarified in previous discussions: The MOS says we capitalize titles such as "God", and this works for any religion. We only do this for the JC god in biblical contexts, because in biblical contexts only the JC god is ever given the title "God". (Anything else would be blasphemy.) In other contexts other gods may be given that title, in which case we capitalize them per the MOS. — kwami (talk) 12:38, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect. The English word "god" is also the given name (in English) for the Abrahamic god, "God". The MoS doesn't discriminate, it merely recognizes this unique circumstance. Yes, it's culturally-driven; but no, it's not discriminatory.

Your reading of the MoS is, simply put, baloney. It says explicitly: God is capitalized only when it refers to the Judeo-Christian deity This is about as unambiguous as it can be. In an article about a book of the Christian Bible, "God of Israel" falls squarely under this directive. ► Belchfire-TALK 12:55, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

You are as mistaken about that as you are mistaken in calling this a policy. Yes, it says "In a biblical context, God is capitalized only when it refers to the Judeo-Christian deity" but that's in a paragraph about proper nouns. In this case it is being used as a common noun. I guess this section needs clarification. Dougweller (talk) 13:08, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

(God is always a common noun. It may be part of a name, or a title, but it's still a common noun.)

No, "god" is not a given name. It's a common noun. It is used as a title, and is capitalized per the MOS as a title. You might want to read proper noun for some background.

Yes, it is unambiguous, but you're still misreading it. "Do A only when X" doesn't mean "always do A". "Revert only after discussion" doesn't mean you must revert after discussion, only that you shouldn't revert without discussion. — kwami (talk) 13:13, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect again. "Proper nouns and titles referencing deities are capitalized: God, Allah, Freyja, the Lord, the Supreme Being, the Messiah." The MoS is clearly stating that "God" is a proper noun. What's your next argument? ► Belchfire-TALK 13:21, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Read more carefully: "Proper nouns and titles". Freyja is a proper noun, like Yahweh or Jeff. God is a title, like Messiah or Lord or President. — kwami (talk) 13:23, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Not in English. In English, when referring to the Abrahamic god, "God" is a name. Oxford English Dictionary explains it fairly well: [3] Be sure to look at Oxford's examples.

In the passage I quoted from the MoS, the titles are preceded with "the", i.e. "the Messiah", "the Supreme Being". ► Belchfire-TALK 13:38, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Which examples? It says no such thing. — kwami (talk) 13:41, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Look again. "for God's sake!", "in God's name", "play God". There are several. ► Belchfire-TALK 13:52, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

You don't understand. Of course those are capitalized, because they're using "God" as a title. We'd capitalize "Mother" in such cases. So "the god of Israel is God", just like "my mother is Mother". — kwami (talk) 14:04, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Correct. As I said, the section needs more work. We should write "a supreme being,", "the supreme being in X religion is ..." when we are using the phrase as a common noun. This is more and more looking like an NPOV issue. Odd, Belchfire writes "when referring to the Abrahamic god" rather than "the Abrahamic God" - isn't that an argument against the position he's taking? Dougweller (talk) 14:27, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami, you should wait for consensus and a change to WP:CAPS before embarking on so many edits [on so many articles]. Also whatever anyone at MOS CAPS does, this needs to be run past WP Judaism/Christianity/Religion before charging off on dozens of article edits.

@PiCo, grammatically Marduk, the God of Babylon probably should be capitalized if that is his title, otherwise the the use of God for the Islamic/Jewish/Bahai/Christian/Sikh god, or any other monotheistic god is a simple product of being the One, isn't it. Cheers In ictu oculi (talk) 16:07, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

This should all be moved over to the article talk page, but there is a particular issue with the God of Israel, who is unnamable to observant Jews, so that God of Israel functions as his actual proper name much of the time. I agree with Belchfire and the OED that God in Christian contexts is also a name not a title. If not God, what is the name of the Christian God (considered as a unity)? Do tell. Also Yahweh is unquestionably the only God of Israel, whereas Babylon etc has many gods. Johnbod (talk) 16:30, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

@Johnbod, following Kwamikagami's edits this now affects 50+ articles, not just the one at head of this section.

@no one in particular. I'm assuming everyone knows that Marduk was not the only god in Babylon, his consort Zarpanitum, etc. Not that that has direct bearing on Marduk, God of Babylon.

Also I'm personally not fussed either way, as long as broad consensus exists. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:36, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

@In ictu oculi: You say: "...a simple product of being the One", which you capitalise. Do you seriously want to start capitalising the word One? What about Two, and Three, and all the others, won't they feel slighted? As for Marduk being One of many Gods in babylon, you seem to be implying that Yahweh was the Only god in Israel, which I'm sure you know is not True. (And we wouldn't be having this conversation if we were writing in some alphabet that didn't use Capitals - like, say, hebrew). PiCo (talk) 23:25, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

@PiCo, heyup. It was a slightly lateral comment; capitalisation can have various meanings and purposes. I was just noting that sometimes being unique is one of them, sometimes. I don't have strong opinions on this subject, just don't want to see a MOS issue robot out into article space without getting some buy in from those who don't regularly follow every itch and scratch in MOSland. Nothing further. Cheers. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:29, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

• Here's a simple rule: if it's used as a title, capitalize it. If not, don't. As far as I can tell, God of Israel (Elah Yisrael, or El Elohe Yisrael) is often used as a title for God, similar to the way Al-Badīʿ and Al-Ġafūr are used as Names of God in Islam. When used as such, it should be capitalized. If it is not being used as a title (i.e. Israel's god) it should not be capitalized. If God of Babylon is used unambiguously as a title for Marduk, then it would also be capitalized, but as far as I can tell, this is not the case. That said, I can think of few cases where it would be appropriate to use the title God of Israel or the clarifying term god of Israel on Wikipedia. ~Adjwilley (talk) 17:19, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

In my opinion this instance should be capitalized, as it does not come to exclude other gods, but to refer to God, who "happens to be" the God of Israel. Debresser (talk) 17:26, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

The context suggests otherwise:

Kings begins with the death of David, to whom Yahweh, the god of Israel, has promised an eternal dynasty, and the succession of his son Solomon. Solomon is praised for his wisdom and wealth, but he offends Yahweh by allowing other gods to be worshiped in Jerusalem.

God brings the Babylonians, who followed Marduk, the god of Babylon; Yahweh deserts his people, Jerusalem is razed ...

the destruction of the kingdom and the Temple is due to the failure of the people, but more especially the kings, to worship Yahweh alone (Yahweh being the god of Israel).

In each case, "the god of" is purely descriptive, identifying who this Yahweh is. In that it's no different from "the king of X" in,

The final verses record how Jehoiachin, the last king, is set free and given honour by the king of Babylon)

In fact, Belchfire had capitalized the God of Babylon along with the God of Israel, and I think most of us agree that that should not be capitalized. But since they are parallel, the same rule should apply to both. — kwami (talk) 21:03, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

@kwani, your edits across such a large number of articles have been incredibly unhelpful. Please wait until this discussion is resolved. @ In ictu oculi, we certainly don't need the imprimatur of any of the projects, but it would be good to keep all the discussion here, and post a note at the relevant projects. StAnselm (talk) 21:08, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

That's an old AWB script from May 2011. At the time there had been a similar discussion and the consensus that, per the MOS, we should not capitalize "god", even in the phrase "god of Israel", unless it is actually used as a title (or a quotation). At that time I scanned all of WP with no complaints. It was this discussion here that reminded me I haven't used it for a while, so I did another scan.

BTW, Book of Kings has been stable with lower-case god of Israel since the phrase was added a year and a half ago. — kwami (talk) 21:13, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Which means absolutely nothing at all. There is no such thing as a "stable article" on Wikipedia. It's a fictional construct. ► Belchfire-TALK 21:39, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

At Mesha Stele we had "Mesha tells how Kemosh, the God of Moab," which I think is obviously wrong, Kwami changed it to "the god of Moab" and he's been reverted. It's a common noun there just as it's a common noun in "the god of Israel". I still see this as a pov issue and although I raised it here and could be seen as canvassing, I think perhaps it belongs at NPOVN. Dougweller (talk) 21:51, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't see a canvassing issue (if I understand you correctly), but there's an obvious issue with using an automated tool to force a change across the entire encyclopedia while this discussion is still ongoing without having reached any consensus. ► Belchfire-TALK 21:56, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I reverted him, because the discussion is still going on here. And there is a recurrent suggestion that we should have "God of Babylon", "God of Moab", etc. Indeed, at Books of Kings, where this all started User:PiCo capitalized "God of Babylon". I've been busy reverting many of kwami's changes - and although I don't have a strong opinion about "God of Moab", I thought it best to revert until there is a consensus here. StAnselm (talk) 21:58, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I reverted a number as well, particularly those that showed up on my watchlist, but there may be dozens more. Kwami, most WP:RS that I can find capitalize "God of Israel", often considering it a synonym with God. Please wait to get consensus before instituting these changes. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:32, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

kwami, would you be able to provide a link to the previous discussion, please? StAnselm (talk) 21:53, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

User:PiCo was not being entirely serious when he force-fed the phrase Marduk, God of Babylon, down the Book of Kings's throat. It was meant to show the absurdity of insisting that god should be God in reference to Judeo-Christian deities, but not with reference to others. It's also worth noting the reason for adding the "god/God of Israel" phrase after Yahweh about a year ago: it was because there was a fear that the uninformed reader might wonder who on earth this Yahweh person was. PiCo (talk) 23:29, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Umm, in that case it sounds like disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point. StAnselm (talk) 23:56, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

So it's cold porridge for Pico again tonight? PiCo (talk) 00:06, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Marduk will punish you. StAnselm (talk) 00:16, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

On the Book of Kings talk page Belchfire makes an interesting reference to the article Capitonym, according to which (he says): 1. "The word "god" is capitalized to "God" when referring to the single deity of monotheistic religions such as Christianity, Judaism, or Islam." and 2. "The word for God is capitalized when referring to the monotheistic Supreme Being, but lower cased when referring to the gods of ancient mythology."

Rule 1 doesn't apply to Yahweh in Iron Age Israel and Judah, as those kingdoms weren't monotheistic and had more than one deity. (The prophets were forever trying to convince them that they were wrong, but apart from some limited success with kings Hezekiah and Josiah they didn't have much success). Rule 2 doesn't apply for much the same reason, but more so - even the prophets didn't think that Yahweh was a Supreme Being, just that he was the most important of all the gods.

So on balance, according to this, articles which have a primarily historical focus, as the Book of Kings article does, should refer to Yahweh as the god of Israel (meaning the god who was the "strength" of Israel, as Moab, Edom and other states had their own national gods). I do however think that it's legitimate to use a capital in a theological context, so that when the prophets are being quoted or referenced as talking about Yahweh the God of Israel, then a capital is needed. A good guideline might be to simply copy whatever the source is saying at any particular point. ("Source", of course, means academic studies mostly, and sometimes bibles when we're quoting passages). PiCo (talk) 23:49, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

The article on capitonyms is not the Wikipedia Manual of Style and has no real bearing here. I referenced it purely to debunk Kwami's spurious argument concerning the definition of a proper noun. ► Belchfire-TALK 23:59, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Since this discussion is about possible amendment of the MoS, the article is relevant, and I thank you for bringing it to our attention. PiCo (talk) 00:06, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

The Judaism, Christianity and Bible projects have all been informed. StAnselm (talk) 00:17, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I tend to agree that, in this particular instance, there is just cause for the "G" in "God of Israel" to be capitalized. I notice that one editor above made the rhetorical comment that the G could only be capitalized in the sense of the Judeo-Christian god. Honestly, I don't know how to respond to that other than to say that if there are any other religions out there which use the word "God" as a form of name for their particular god, that the "G" could probably be capitalized there as well. I myself don't know anything about that one way or another, though. In Judaism and Christianity, "God" is used as one of the names by which that particular deity is named. On that basis, in this context, the word is used as a proper name, and it is appropriate to capitalize them, just as it is appropriate to capitalize the "Francis" in Francis of Assisi, even though from what I've read in his particular case it was just a nickname meaning something like "Frenchie". If any word, including nicknames like in that case, and, more or less, this case, is used as a proper name, it is appropriate to capitalize it. If Marduk or other gods are indicated in independent reliable sources as being regularly referred to by their followers by the stand-alone nickname "God" as well, I would agree to capitalize in that case as well, or any other similar case. John Carter (talk) 00:57, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Upper case, upper case, for sure, for sure. History2007 (talk) 01:34, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

We still need something that can used as a guideline. Going back to the Capitonym article, how about using their definition:

• 1. "The word "god" is capitalized to "God" when referring to the single deity of monotheistic religions such as Christianity, Judaism, or Islam."

and

• 2. "The word for God is capitalized when referring to the monotheistic Supreme Being, but lower cased when referring to the gods of ancient mythology."

I think the first half of the second point ("The word for God is capitalized when referring to the monotheistic Supreme Being") is just repeating the first point and can be dropped, while the second half gives guidance on when to use a small /g/. Does this sound like a useful guideline? PiCo (talk) 01:38, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I heard that Marduk has already contacted you about it... But seriously, this is a straightforward issue, as stated upfront at the top: When we add "of Israel", we are referring to a specific entity, which calls for capitalization. Now, which other entities would you like to contact you? History2007 (talk) 01:42, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I might favor phrasing something like "If the term "God" (or some other term generally translated as such) is regularly used by a given religious group as a form of alternate name or nickname for a single individual divinity, then, in that case, the term "god" can be capitalized in wikipedia when it is being used in the article as an alternate-name or nickname for the specific divinity in question." John Carter (talk) 01:54, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

(That's what we have now. — kwami (talk))

@History2007: That's not how capitalization works in English. "The president of the United States" also refers to a specific entity, but it is not cap'd unless used as a title. Same with "the cat sitting in my front yard", which is a specific entity as well, but we would never capitalize it as *the Cat Sitting in My Front Yard. There is a tendency to capitalize "God" even when not used as a title when referring to the Christian god, because the author expects a largely Christian audience who might be offended at the suggestion that theirs might not be the only god. Similarly, people often capitalize "He, Him, His". But we don't, because we address a more universal audience, or at least we hope to.

Now, very often "God of Israel" is a title, like "Host of Hosts", and should thus be capitalized. And it's not always easy to determine how the phrase is being used. But clearly in the parenthetical clarification "(Yahweh being the god of Israel)", god is not being used as part of a title.

If we want to start capitalizing "God" when it refers to the god of a monotheistic religion, even when not being used as a title, then that is a discussion on amending rather than applying the MOS, and I think we'd need a new discussion section. And I'm not sure how we would apply it: Is Mawu the Vodun "God" with a capital gee? Vodun is, after all, a monotheistic religion, but we almost never capitalize in the case of Vodun except whet "God" is a title or part of a title. Is Hinduism a monotheistic religion? Many Hindus will tell you so, but not all of them. How do we decide which Hindus are relevant? Do we need to have a debate over whether each religion is monotheistic before we can properly format an article? Because for many religions our sources are going to contradict each other on this point. Do we use lower-case "god" for early Judaism, because early Judaism was not monotheistic, but henotheistic? At which point in history does the Hebrew god become the Hebrew God? — kwami (talk) 02:10, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't think a historical argument about the development of monotheism is at all helpful. Certainly, the Hebrew Bible is written from a monotheistic perspective. If the prophets call the people (back?) to monotheism, then at least some people are thinking there is only one God/god. So rule 1 in the Capitonym article still applies. Arguments like PiCo's "even the prophets didn't think that Yahweh was a Supreme Being" shouldn't really be used here - this is a disputed construction that doesn't have much relevance for our style guidelines. StAnselm (talk) 02:32, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

In response to Kwami, no, the proposed phrasing I suggested is not what we have now. This is what we have now:

"Proper nouns and titles referencing deities are capitalized: God, Allah, Freyja, the Lord, the Supreme Being, the Messiah. The same is true when referring to important religious figures, such as Muhammad, by terms such as the Prophet. Common nouns not used as titles should not be capitalized: the Norse gods, personal god. In a biblical context, God is capitalized only when it refers to the Judeo-Christian deity, and prophet is generally not capitalized."

I added several qualifiers. One, I did not rule out the possibility that other deities might not also be called "God," although I did acknowledge that I wasn't aware of any. Secondly, I indicated that the term would have to be used in the article as a form of proper name, a point which is missing in the current construction. The fact that Kwami says there is a tendency to capitalize God is another matter entirely, and, honestly, I believe my alternate phrasing is useful in that sense as well. I indicated (1) the term should be regularly used as a form of alternate name for a single god (not necessarily the Abrahamic one) by his/her/its followers, and that the term would have to be used in the article itself as a form of proper name for the entity in question. The fact that a bit of an off-topic point is introduced in the last paragraph of that last post above by Kwami as well is also not particuarly relevant here. Policies and guidelines are not in general intended to be able to address every situation which might arise, which seems to rather be the point of that paragraph. I can and do think that my proposed phrasing is a bit more direct regarding the specific instances in which capitalization would be appropriate than the current phrasing, and I would appreciate it if individuals actually responded to it directly rather than with a dismissive "that's what we have now," because it certainly is not what we have now. John Carter (talk) 02:59, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you see explanation as being "dismissive", but that implies that you find any disagreement to be unacceptable, doesn't it? The wording is of course not what we have now, but the meaning is, more or less. Perhaps your wording would be more understandable (one editor here seems to have a hard time parsing the word "only"), but it introduces the complication that we would need to search the lit to see whether "god" or "God" is more common. And if followers of a god speak some language other than English, how do we address that? Esp. a language written in a script w/o caps? I'm thinking of the debate over whether "hangul" should be capitalized based on how it's used in Korean, even though Korean does not have caps. I think this could get to be a mess. Better IMO to stick to general English capitalization rules, either what we have or adding the monotheistic exception proposed above. — kwami (talk) 04:12, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I wonder how much of a dent in the global economy these pointless discussions about cats and gods make... What a way to spend a life... Good bye. History2007 (talk) 09:47, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

And I just wasted half an hour reading this entire section. What does that say about me? For what it's worth, as an uninvolved observer, I think Pico's proposal above makes the most sense: "The word 'god' is capitalized to 'God' when referring to the single deity of monotheistic religions such as Christianity, Judaism, or Islam." and "The word for God is capitalized when referring to the monotheistic Supreme Being, but lower cased when referring to the gods of ancient mythology." FurrySings (talk) 14:23, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

God (cont.)

Kwami has apparently taken the lull in this conversation as license to start implementing these changes, using AWB. The changes have all been reverted now, by various editors (including me), but it would be nice if some consensus could be achieved here. Jayjg ^(talk) 19:20, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

There's been no consensus to change the status quo, which is that we capitalize God as a title, not god as a common noun. So, Yahweh is God of Gods, Host of Hosts, God of Israel, the Lord God, but "Yahweh" is one of the names of the god of the Israelites. The latter is not a title, and so does not get capitalized. If we were to change Yahweh, God of Israel to Shango, God of Thunder, and it would still be capitalized, then fine; otherwise we're privileging one religion over others, which violates the basic WP policy of neutrality. Yes, NPOV is *policy*, and so overrides guidelines.

If we're going to capitalize 'god' every time it refers to Jehovah, then we have to capitalize when speaking of the Canaanite deities too, and the deities of every other religion.

Also, Jay, we do not capitalize pronouns outside of titles, and when we do capitalize titles, we cap all nouns, not just 'God'. — kwami (talk) 19:57, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Kwami, I asked you above for link to the discussion that established consensus, but to far you have failed to provide it. StAnselm (talk) 21:12, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

That was years ago; it'll take a while to find it. — kwami (talk) 23:21, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Still waiting... StAnselm (talk) 20:50, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

The MOS is quite clear; "God is capitalized only when it refers to the Judeo-Christian deity". The MOS itself "privileges one religion over others", no doubt because English itself does the same. Thus, there's a two-fold issue with your edits: a) English-language conventions may not meet every editor's view of what's "fair", but it's not up to Wikipedia to fix English, and b) you shouldn't try to edit-war in controversial changes to the MOS, or indeed to broad swathes of articles, absent a consensus for those changes. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:09, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it is quite clear, but you have it backwards. You also left out "in a biblical context". This is the case because in a biblical context, "God" is only used as a title for Jehovah, and so of course would only be capitalized when referring to Jehovah. At least I'm not aware of any passage that refers to some other god as God. But that's irrelevant to this discussion, because no-one is arguing that we should call other biblical gods "God". I also fail to see where the MOS privileges one religion over others. Could you point it out? Nowhere does it single out one religion, apart from the biblical-context comment. Even if it did, it would violate NPOV, and policy trumps guideline. — kwami (talk) 23:21, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

(e-c) For the most part, I agree with Kwami that we capitalize God when it is used as a title or alternate name, but not when it is used as a form of regular noun. So, the question would seem to be determining in which way the word "god" is used in a given article. I also have to agree with Jayjg about the "fairness" issue, as, in this language, barring some little known or not widely discussed religions, it does seem that the term "god" is used as a name more or less exclusively by the Judeo-Christian-Islamic "Abrahamic" tradition. I add the caveat above because I know that there are a lot of indigenous religions out there which we have little if any content about yet, and it might be possible that some of them also use the noun "god" as some sort of honorific title/name. I don't know. So, at this point, I would have to say that I see no particular consensus for widespread changes based on this discussion, although I can and do see that, perhaps, it might not be unreasonable for someone to perhaps change the phrasing of an article, if the content would seemingly deal with deities beyond the single, all-powerful, all-etc., creator god-type called "God", it might make sense to change the phrasing in such a way as to use the lower-case "g". But I would very much believe that any such changes, on a broad level, be discussed first, probably on the relevant article talk pages, although I suppose a link to multiple proposed changes on a given WikiProject talk page, maybe as an RfC, might also work. John Carter (talk) 23:26, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

"God" is capitalized for any religion. Certainly for Islam (some argue that Allah is defined differently than Jehovah, and so is not the same deity), but also in Hinduism, Sikhism, and many others. The MOS explicitly supports this, and AFAIK no-one disagrees, so there's no problem. — kwami (talk) 23:43, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Kwami, when the MOS says "God is capitalized only when it refers to the Judeo-Christian deity", it is "privileging" the "Judeo-Christian deity"; again, no doubt, because that's what the English language itself does. As for NPOV "trumping" the MOS, you seem to have misconstrued the meaning of NPOV here; NPOV means that Wikipedia attempts to follow the lead of the preponderance of reliable sources. In any event, if you think that the MOS violates NPOV, you're still going to have to get consensus that that is the case. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:36, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't say that! How can you repeatedly misread it like that?

We capitalize "God" for any religion. That is established practice on WP. But we only capitalize the god called "God" by the religion, which in the JC case means Jehovah. No-one disputes this, so I don't understand why you keep arguing it. In the biblical context, "God" means Jehovah. In other contexts, "God" may mean a different deity, or one might argue that the Supreme Creator of all religions is the same. Either way, it's a title, and such usage is supported by the MOS. But what does that have to do with the issue here?

BTW, we used to have "Christian god" as an example of when not to capitalize, but it got lost in an edit war over someone trying to add "Almighty God" in Wikipedia's voice. — kwami (talk) 23:43, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay, everyone keeps saying the MOS is simple, yet we keep arguing over what it says. Here's the relevant bit:

titles referencing deities are capitalized: God, Allah, the Lord, ... Common nouns not used as titles should not be capitalized: the Norse gods, personal god. In a biblical context, God is capitalized only when it refers to the Judeo-Christian deity ...

So,

(1) "God" is capitalized when used as a title. No mention of any particular religion.

(2) "God" is not capitalized when not used as a title. No mention of any particular religion.

(3) In biblical contexts, "God" is only capitalized as a title for Jehovah.

I suspect (3) would hold for any religion, but it's not likely to be an issue for others. That is, in an article on Sikhism, when we say "God", we mean the Sikh conception of God, not Jehovah. Similarly, "God" in Islam means Allah, and "God" in Hinduism means Brahma. This would appear to be common sense, and I've never seen anyone argue about it. One of the earlier counter-examples to (3) was where Jehovah made Moses "like a god"; in that case we don't capitalize, though that's an obvious case of (2).

Now, the question is whether "God of Israel" should be capitalized. The MOS addresses this: If it falls under (1), it's capitalized. (This is compatible with (3), because the "God of Israel" is Jehovah.) If it falls under (2), it is not capitalized. It's not always easy to tell whether it's a title in a particular case, so there is going to be difficulty in applying this. But certainly if we say "Chemosh is the god of the Moabites, and Yahweh the god of the Israelites", we are not using "god" as a title, and so would not capitalize. Otherwise we would need to say "Chemosh is the God of Moab, and Yahweh is the God of Israel", which would violate (3). On the other hand, "his name means El the God of Israel" certainly strikes me as a title. In some cases "the God of Israel" is being used as a substitute for Jehovah – that is, as a proper name – and in others it's merely a descriptor identifying who Jehovah is. I think we need to ask ourselves, why is the phrase being used? What would we replace it with if it weren't? Would that thing be capitalized? — kwami (talk) 00:25, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Actual usage in English is doubtless the reason why Kwamikagami has had no success in persuading other Wikipedia editors. The English of Wikipedia should be normal English, not some peculiar dialect of English, with rules of its own. Like it or not, "God of Israel" is normal English. Esoglou (talk) 08:16, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Did you bother to read what I wrote?

Of course it's normal English. It's also commonly a title. And it's normal English to capitalize "Him", but we don't do that on WP.

It's not always a title, however, and as such is not always capitalized in "normal English". For example,

The original god of Israel was El.

It occurs as a title of the god of the patriarchs, and it appears in the older poetic compositions for the god of Israel (see also Num. 24:4)

Yahweh, a tribal god of the highlands, emerged as the national god of Israel (1 Kings 20:23).

In the patriarchal narratives, the god of Shechem, 'el, is called 'ělōhê yiśrā'ēl, "the god of Israel", and is presumed to be Yahweh.

Indeed, Yahweh was "the god of Israel" (Judg. 5:3)

—Smith, 2002, The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel

But it was Yahweh, of course, who would emerge as the national god of Israel and Judah

—Miller & Hayes, 1986, A History of Ancient Israel and Judah

For some Israelites, Yahweh was the chief god of Israel, but many, including kings of Israel and Judah, worshiped other gods as well. It was among the Babylonian exiles in the sixth century B.C.E. that Yahweh—the God of Israel—came to be seen as the only God.

—Spielvogel, 2011, Western Civilization

All capitalize "God of Israel" as a title, not otherwise. This is what the MOS currently prescribes. This is the existing consensus. It's up to you to build a new consensus to change this, and to promote one deity over another in Wikipedia's voice. —kwami (talk) 10:08, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm still with Kwami. Although his examples aren't guidance for us, they are useful. Can I ask for some comments? In "For some Israelites, Yahweh was the chief god of Israel" are some saying if that was in Wikipedia and not a quote, it should be "Yahweh was the chief God of Israel"? Or that "Yahweh was the chief god of Israel" should be "Yahweh was the chief God of Israel"? Comments on these and other examples might help us move forward. Dougweller (talk) 13:20, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I would think that in this context the "g" probably should not be capitalized, as the word "god" is being used in a general sense, and as it is basically nonsensical to say that Yahweh is the "chief God" when he is, basically because I don't want to have to deal with the issue of henotheism here, the "only God" in the religious system of that people.

There is another question, reqarding whether the "G" should be capitazlied when dealing with the creator god in articles relating to the "philosophy of religion". In those instances, I tend to think that it would make sense to allow the capitalization when the subject is dealing with the philosophical concept of a single, all-powerful, all-knowing, etc., creator god, but only in that context. "Creator god" in and of itself is a rather different concept, as not all creator gods are all-powerful, and in that more generalized sense I think the lower-case g would probably be the best option. John Carter (talk) 17:35, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that makes sense to me. I think it's covered by points (1) vs (2): in a generic sense, we can speak of many creator gods; but we can also have God the Creator or even the Creator God the way we have the God of Fire or the Fire God. In any particular instance we find it may be difficult to say what the author intended, but when we're putting it in Wikipedia's own voice, we should have some idea of what we mean!

BTW, for the edits I've done over the past couple years, there are cases which are clearly generic, which I've changed to l.c.; others clearly titles, which I've left alone; and others which were difficult to determine. Sometimes I'd change one only to revert myself, or to be reverted and to see that I was wrong. I'm not trying to eliminate the title "God" from WP in any religion, only trying to ensure that we do not place the faith of some of our readers above that of others. The MOS already covers this pretty well, if we can agree to follow its guidance. — kwami (talk) 19:48, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, this edit of yours was vandalism, and I marked it as such. You have been warned - any further edits along these lines using AWB will have you reported for abuse of tools. StAnselm (talk) 21:50, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

You're being ridiculous. "God of Adam and Eve" is not one of the names of God.

I see that neither of us noticed that it was ungrammatical. Does that make you a vandal?

BTW, falsely accusing people of vandalism is an abuse of tools, and you can lose them for doing that. I had assumed good faith, that it was an automated summary; I still assume good faith, and suspect that you simply don't know what WP:vandalism is. — kwami (talk) 09:28, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Dougweller, I think the questions is somewhat moot. I don't think that phrase could be in Wikipedia except in a quote. It is controversial, and it's one scholar's opinion. This brings us back to the question of monotheism and henotheism. It seems strange that we should be debating the theological point here, but the guidelines say "God is capitalized only when it refers to the Judeo-Christian deity", and your question raises the point about whether "god" in the Hebrew Bible always refers to a single monotheistic deity. Well, I think with the phrase "god of Israel" it always does, and so "god" should be capitalised. StAnselm (talk) 20:41, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

StAnselm misses the grammatical point of Kwami's examples of god of Israel in scholarly usage. I think we would all agree that any time "god" is preceded by the indefinite article a, it isn't capitalized, because by definition it's a common noun. I may have overlooked one in this lengthy discussion, but it seems to me that in every example that would justify a capital G, the definite article the could be dropped, so that "God of Israel" functions as a name. But in the examples Kwami lists, the the either could not be omitted, because it's referring to the concept "god, deity," or there is an intervening modifier ("the chief god" or "the national god of Israel") where "god of Israel" is not a proper noun. The last example even demonstrates the linguistic process of how "the god" is transformed to "God" as a name. In the phrase that Yahweh—the God of Israel—came to be , the the could be dropped in the appositive "the God of Israel" because it's a formal naming or what in the religions of classical antiquity we would call a "cult title". I know it isn't so simple, but the necessity of the definite article is one test or indication. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:02, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

In other words, we shouldn't be considering theological questions in the first place, but whether a common noun (thus "god of Israel") or proper noun ("God of Israel") is meant in context. There are instances where this will be ambiguous. In these cases, editors should probably look to the capitalization of their sources, who will presumably know whether they intended the name (proper noun, G) or concept (common noun, g). Cynwolfe (talk) 21:33, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, going back to the original dispute in the Books of Kings article, it looks to me like a proper noun: Kings begins with the death of David, to whom Yahweh, the god of Israel, has promised an eternal dynasty. In any case, the sentence is talking about the "Judeo-Christian deity", and so requires a capital according to our current MOS guidelines. I still find it hard to see why people are disputing that. StAnselm (talk) 21:43, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Because that's not what the MOS says. See the following comments by Cynwolfe and John Carter for clarification. — kwami (talk) 09:25, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

If you do a Google books search for the phrase "the God of Israel", you'll find the vast majority of sources capitalize the term: on the first ten pages of results, I was only able to find two sources that didn't capitalize. It appears that capitalizing "God" in this context is standard English. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:06, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

But this isn't a discussion about "most common." It isn't a discussion about an article title, or what to call the deity who is the sole focus of the religion of Israel. It's clear that it should be capitalized as "God" when it's the name of a specific deity. The question, rather, is how editors know when "God" is being used as a proper name, and when "god" is used as a common noun for the concept. In the original controversy that StAnselm has just restated, the problem is that it's ambiguous. The appositive could be read as a mere explanation of who Yahweh is for those who don't know: he is the (supreme and only) deity of Israel. If capitalizing I might just drop the the—Yahweh, God of Israel—so it appears as an alternate name, in keeping with the formulaic redundancy of naming that is characteristic of religious language. Or is the appositive needed at all? If it's an explanation of who Yahweh is, it's lowercase: he's a god, and in particular the god of Israel. If it's the name, it's capitalized. This has to be decided by the meaning of the sentence. Cynwolfe (talk) 22:38, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I tend to agree that the specific term "God of Israel" is also frequently used as a "name" of Jehovah, in more or less the same sense as Duke of Buckingham or similar titles are used as alternative names, and that it makes sense to capitalize it in that sense, if it is being used as a formm of alternative name.

Beyond that, ultimately, I can and do see the objections to capitalizing the word "god" in a lot of cases. Some of the biggest problems seems to me to be that (1) for the most part, those of us who edit are English-speakers, and the English speaking world is historically strongly inclined to the Judeo-Christian-Islamic god, so that we as editors capitalize the word a lot on general principles, and (2) as more or less a corollary to the above, the theological/philosophical works most of us know best which relate to the topic are also from the Judeo-Christian-Islamic sense. I know my personal understanding of many smaller or less globally-prominent faiths and their theologies is weak, although I have in the past few years tried to change that. I regret to say that, unfortunately, I haven't found that much by way of sources to provide a lot of information. Maybe, and this is just a maybe, what we need to do here is get some individuals who can consult the leading reference works on the relevant topics, religion, philosophy, and theology, and see if any of them provide any sort of clear and less ambiguous basis for the distinction between capital G and lower-case g in this context. Anyone think it would be a good idea to specifically ask individuals associated with the directly-relevant WikiProjects for those topics to review the literature and see if it proves at all helpful? John Carter (talk) 16:38, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Ask Noetica. He usually has something intelligent to say on matters of style.

We could also test if "G/god of Israel" could be replaced with "deity of Israel". If so, that would suggest it's being used as a simple common noun. — kwami (talk) 09:25, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Proposal

Having dropped into this discussion late, I decided to look more closely at the language of the guideline: In a biblical context, God is capitalized only when it refers to the Judeo-Christian deity, and prophet is generally not capitalized. I don't find "In a biblical context" helpful, as I don't know what it means, and it seems to me that "God" is capitalized any time it's used as the name of the Judaeo-Christian deity (that is, as a proper noun), regardless of whether the context is Bible study, cuisine, or sports. I wonder whether we might be able to clarify that the distinction in capitalization is the usual one between proper and common noun? To start the discussion, I propose:

• When used as a proper noun in naming the Judaeo-Christian deity, God is capitalized.

It isn't the "biblical context" that determines whether god is capitalized; it's whether it's a proper or common noun. I suppose if further clarification is desired, one could add:

• If used as a common noun or synonym for "deity," god is lowercase.

Some instances may still remain ambiguous as to which is intended, as indicated above, but at least the guideline will frame the nature of the question correctly: is it a proper or common noun? Cynwolfe (talk) 14:36, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose, though I think we can remove the biblical comment, which just seems to confuse people.

When used as a proper noun for any deity, "God" is capitalized, so there's no reason to single out JC here. The second line is redundant, and could be handled with an example. The comment about the biblical context is so that we don't use "God" for any god besides Jehovah. However, since the Bible refers only to Jehovah as "God", I doubt there's any need for that. The basic convention of "God" as a title and "god" as a common noun should be sufficient. — kwami (talk) 09:25, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with what you're saying, and I especially find in a biblical context uninstructive. If I'm writing about Milton, it's "In Paradise Lost, God tells Adam" etc. If I'm writing a history article, it's "was attributed to a belief in God." I wouldn't consider either of those a "biblical" context. So excuse my genuine ignorance, but is there another god named God? In invocations, you might have translated titles like "Sator, God of Sowing," though that would most likely occur in a quotation. My thinking was that if the entry already specifies the difference between common and proper adequately (I'm not sure of that), this simply clarifies the Judaeo-Christian practice—which might seem odd or presumptuous to those unfamiliar with it. The entry currently reads as if it privileges the Judaeo-Christian entity, because of the "only". Cynwolfe (talk) 20:15, 28 January 2013 (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.

Dutch and German surnames van & von

Particularly in an Anthroponymy project. As a result of my effort to find a MOS covering surnames like these, I have come up empty handed. The lack of a clear standardized MOS concerning this has caused disruptive editing. There are editors mistakenly capping the "v" in the Dutch prefix van In question is a surname that came from the Netherlands and colonized in New Netherland in the 1500s. Keeping in mind there were only a small hand full that went back the Netherlands BUT, there were no heirs from this group. In a nutshell the entire surname was basically uprooted from the Netherlands to New Netherland where one single progenitor procreated in the 1500s.

In the course of editing this surname the conflicting editors, so far, have never had any dispute over the origin of this particular Dutch surname.

The consensus is that it is Dutch. The misunderstanding starts when an editor relies on extant examples of a mis-capitalized "v" in print. This has apparently led to skewed perceptions, leaving some to assume a surname has been Anglicized.

Clarity must be made to insure against slipping into an unfounded assumption. The frequency of a mistaken occurrence is no excuse for ignoring what is proper.

The rule is rather easy to wrap ones mind around if you know the origin and history of a particular surname. To a small degree I will concede that on its face so far, it seems to be a minor issue but, being an Anthroponymy project sort of makes a difference, especially when an editor repeatedly makes the same mistake, even reverting corrections.

A misunderstanding of the rule is used as support for mistakes.

There are several articles that make so extremely clear that any serious reader could grasp what is proper. I hesitate in guessing whether the driver of a contrary editing pattern depicts being obtuse or seriously mistaken in their good faith effort. Either way, they are creating a disruptive environment.

• If the surname is Dutch or German, use a lower case "v" when followed by the given name or a title

Baron von Richthofen and Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

Otherwise it is like any other word it is capped at the start of a sentence but, it is capitalized when used as a stand alone. Correct:

• Van Vevvenvever was not at work. (begin sentence)
• "They went to Van Vevvenvever's house." (stand alone)
• "Sorry, Vivian van Vevvenvever lives down the street. (with given name)
• The mailbox has General van Vevvenvever's name on it." (with title)

The information is substantial and the references are plenty. Part of the confusion is an unfounded assumption of Anglicization.

The following articles are clear but there is no MOS that I am aware of clarifying what is proper as opposed to intrenched misunderstanding. Van (Dutch) Dutch_surname#Surnames

Somehow there is a notion that all it takes is a name to be in America and suddenly it is "Anglicized" by default....

JGVR (talk) 04:10, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Deciding on a generalised "right" and a "wrong" way to do it here on en.wikipedia would be missing the point, I think. We should follow the usage in good sources. This may lead to us having slightly different van and von for different people or groups of people, but that's OK, and better than the alternative - that we write a rule in the MOS which would then be used to overrule what sources say on other articles. bobrayner (talk) 04:42, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

But, by not having a clear rule (even if it is loosely enforced) it is leaving open a certain editor an opening to WP:Wikihound my edits this has been an ongonig battle with someone who refuses to try understanding the rule. try reading the silly argument made in their defense about 2 posts after the WP:3O that editor has been following nearly every edit I make wantonly capping names that shouldn't be. It is the hounding as if I am the one making the mistake and having changes made that the editor themselfs have said "is no big deal". Fair enough so why are they making it a big deal by changing how I edit and leaving pages like Jeremias van Rensselaer alone for years but the ones I make are in need of changing within 4 days of being created. additionally Jeremias is the ONLY person anyone that has inherited the name- can get that name. It is Dutch 100% - no question about it ...JGVR (talk) 05:07, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Dismissing guidelines from the Government Printing Office seems a bit odd alsoJGVR (talk) 05:09, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

"generalized"? I have a hard time deciding to laugh at your dismissal or agree that in fact I am not asking for anything to be 'generalized" I am looking for standardized according to guidelines taxpayers paid to have compiled into a Printing Guideline.

JGVR (talk) 05:33, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Using the spelling / capitalisation &c used by sources sounds like a clear rule to me. If there's an argument about specific content in an article, shouldn't that be handled somewhere like Talk:Jeremias van Rensselaer? It might also be a good idea to ask for a third opinion though. Wikihounding is bad, but creating an extra rule in the MOS isn't going to stop wikihounding. bobrayner (talk) 10:22, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Important RFC at WT:TITLE

Editors will be interested in this RFC at Wikipedia talk:Article titles, to confirm the roles of WP:TITLE and MOS in determining article titles. The question affects the smooth running of many discussions on Wikipedia, including RMs. The more participation, the better.

Noetica^Tea? 07:10, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

117 reverends

This was changed, but the change was reverted. WP:JOBTITLES currently has an example "there were 117 reverends at the pastor's convention". The use of reverend as an adjective is a bad idea to have as an example, since it's often considered poor usage (see The Reverend#Usage). The explanation of the reversion was that we are no endorsing the usage, but this is a manual of style, and there is no particular need to use this example when countless others could be used instead. StAnselm (talk) 09:30, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

The main reason I reverted, though it wouldn't fit into the edit summary, is that the changed version of the example was not illustrative of the point being made in the sentence. The sentence deals with the use of honorific forms of address, such as "His Holiness", not with names of positions such as cardinal and bishop, which are treated in the first paragraph of that section of the page. Although the usage is sometimes objected to, "Reverend" is used, at least in some U.S. Protestant churches, as a form of address ("That was a fine sermon, Reverend"), so it at least illustrates the point that the sentence is trying to make. If you can think of a better example to illustrate the point, you're welcome to replace the "reverends" example; but the "cardinals and bishops" replacement was a no-go (it would have to have been "eminences and excellencies", which sounds a bit awkward). Deor (talk) 10:09, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, maybe it isn't just the example, then - maybe we should say that the generic use of honorifics should not normally be used (or at least omit the clause about generic use). "There were three highnesses at the party; there were eight honourables in Parliament; there were four worships in the courtroom." Ugh! Anyway, "Reverend" as a form of address is one thing; as a generic synonym for "minister" is quite another. StAnselm (talk) 19:01, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

"shorter than five letters" rule / general capitalization rules discussion over at WT:MoS

People frequenting this talk page, please see this. – ὁ οἶστρος (talk) 19:33, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Compass points

Under "Compass points" should we mention that the abbreviations for compass points — such as NE and ESE, etc. — are capitalized? (I am not aware of any exceptions.) ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:17, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Randall Munroe takes the piss out of us

Behold. — A. di M.  08:28, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't think there's going to be a single talk page not linking to this by the end of the day. drewmunn (talk) 08:43, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Nobody seems to have added it to Wikipedia in popular culture#Wikipedia in web comics yet. --Boson (talk) 13:03, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

COMMONNAME should take precedence

I propose a modification to MOS:CT that states simply, WP:COMMONNAME takes precedence to the advice given in this section. Ryan Vesey 01:42, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

But commonname doesn't talk about capitalization. And if it did, what would it say? Go with majority of sources, rather than aim for WP style? Why? Dicklyon (talk) 01:46, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Because it's best when it doesn't look like the project is run by pedantic fools who can't spell. Mackensen (talk) 01:47, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Nothing in commonname says it doesn't deal with style or capitalization. It says we should use the title used by a majority of reliable sources in the English language. The title isn't limited by the words used, spelling and capitalization and style are all part of the style and they can be affected by COMMONNAME without any change in that policy. Ryan Vesey 01:51, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Given that COMMONNAME documents a policy and MOS:CT a guideline, I believe this is already the case, should editors choose to follow policy. Mackensen (talk) 01:47, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Since it is already effectively policy, I have updated. (RV only if you think you can provide reasons why it is NOT policy.)

Incidentally WP:COMMONNAME does not literally cover the letter case case we've encountered. People still need to use WP:COMMON sense or reach WP:CONSENSUS, it seems.

--Kim Bruning (talk) 01:55, 31 January 2013 (UTC) We could do further updates, or should we just go through the entire list of participants at Talk:Star Trek into Darkness and have them (re)take lessons in consensus, IAR, etc? :-)

Well I hope you people who have taken it upon yourselves to change things without having a meaningful discussion are now going to move the literally hundreds of pages on Wikipedia that use lowercase prepositions with the same eagerness that you moved the Star Trek page. -- Scjessey (talk) 03:07, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

No.

2 points:

• That's not how policy works. Those pages may be changed, as deemed appropriate, at any time.
• You can always apply WP:BRD and/or WP:Consensus if you like.

If you do wish to discuss rather than obstruct (As I assume you do :-), can you provide an argument, perhaps along one of the following lines?

• "The MOS actually does override COMMONNAME, because..."
• "COMMONNAME actually doesn't apply here, because..."
• "I actually disagree with COMMONNAME itself, and for good reason, because..."

Something like that! :-) We'll try to reach consensus.

--Kim Bruning (talk) 03:34, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, you were bold. I reverted. Now let's slow down and discuss why you'd want to change a longstanding styling guideline based on an interpretation of COMMONNAME that has been rejected by the majority in the RFC at WT:AT. Dicklyon (talk) 04:09, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Could you please link to the specific discussion? Mackensen (talk) 04:14, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:AT#RfC_on_COMMONSTYLE_proposal. Dicklyon (talk) 04:35, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

26 support to 2123 opposes (if I counted right) is a majority, granted, but a bare majority doesn't necessarily make for consensus. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 04:59, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

And certainly no consensus to go the other way, as Kim Bruning is trying to do. Dicklyon (talk) 05:04, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I think Talk:Star Trek Into Darkness is going a long way toward showing that consensus... --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 05:39, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

This page is for developing this MOS guideline, it is not a naming convention (guidelines for naming article). This thread is nothing to do with developing this guideline. As this is a discussion about an article title the MOS is not the place to conduct it. This discussion ought to take place at Wikipedia talk:Article titles as the guidance is given on the policy page at WP:LOWERCASE. -- PBS (talk) 08:24, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

• I'd like to point out that WP:TITLEFORMAT (which is policy) directs you to WP:NCCAPS in the case of proper names. WP:NCCAPS in turn, specifically mentions composition titles and directs you to MOS:CT. So this whole idea of "COMMONNAME trumps MOS" is absolute nonsense, as COMMONNAME would, it seems, defer to MOS for styling once the title has been decided per COMMONNAME. --Rob Sinden (talk) 16:04, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

  Ah, well, that's definitely the next bug to iron out. Would you care to take a look at it? --Kim Bruning (talk) 18:01, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

• PBS, again I would urge you to not be such a stickler about where discussions take place. It's reasonable to have a discussion about this page on this talk page. And it is not immediately clear anyway why a discussion about titling style not happen at the discussion page for the manual of style. Everyone else, carry on. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:12, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Ok, well, on the basis of the snow close at Talk:Star Trek Into Darkness, I think we've got this covered now. *Phew*, what a lot of noise for such a stupid thing. --Kim Bruning (talk) 18:01, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

I've reverted Kim Bruning's change to this MOS page, as I see no consensus for it here and disagree that a local consensus on one article's talk page constitutes a consensus to change this guideline. In most of the recent move discussions I've seen in which it has been argued that capitalization in articles' titles should be determined by an "official" capitalization (i.e., whatever is used on the album cover, movie poster, etc.), that argument has been rejected in favor of following the convention described here and at WP:NCCAPS. I also disagree that WP:COMMONNAME has any relevance to this discussion. Deor (talk) 18:48, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Ok, that's an interesting set of reasons. I'll ponder those and get back to you! :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 19:14, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

To begin with, why do you think COMMONNAME has no relevance here? Others have stated that it is instead of overriding concern, so now I'm wondering if our actions based on that interpretation so far have been correct, or could be subject to improvement?

Can you summarize or link to the reasoning under which the "official" capitalization argument was rejected?

--Kim Bruning (talk) 19:17, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

I can hardly speak for everyone who's participated in such discussions, but might I suggest that (1) capitalization in titles is a matter of style, (2) we have a manual of style that contains guidelines for such capitalization, and (3) if we're going to ignore our manual of style in favor of random examples of usage elsewhere, there's probably no point in having a manual of style at all? Let anarchy (or marketing professionals or graphic designers or whoever happens to be in charge of any particular bit of packaging) prevail! As for WP:COMMONNAME, Robsinden's comment above seems to be on point; that policy deals with what titles should be given to articles, not with how those titles should be styled. Deor (talk) 19:33, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, what would be the point of a Manual of Style? Though perhaps there are many things where there is no explicit "official" way to style things, where the MoS might yet be of use.

Can you link to some location where people actually formed consensus on this?

I agree that COMMONNAME does not currently explicitly make statements on capitalization style (as you can also see above), perhaps because the authors thought the answer to be WP:COMMON sense, who knows.

Perhaps User:Ryan Veseys suggestion was not the best? Since I think we're coming to a conclusion where we explicitly allow external sources to determine capitalization at least some of the time; where/how would you propose to make the change instead?

I think it's given that we would still need to hash out the rest of the consensus for the above; but let's take it one at a time.

--Kim Bruning (talk) 19:46, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Deor asks what the point of a style manual is if we're going to defer to random usage elsewhere, and that's a fair question.

But to answer it, I think it's worth asking, what do we hope to get out of our style guide in this case?

• Ensure that all our titles look the same
• Ensure that when an editor isn't sure how to capitalize something, and there isn't an external constraint, the editor gets some guidance so he doesn't have to make an arbitrary choice.

We have already made exceptions for "eBay" and "iPod", and I think these are perfectly sensible. I think it could be just as sensible to make exceptions for article titles which are (or ought to be) identical to the titles of the works they're about. —Steve Summit (talk) 20:39, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

It's your "and there isn't an external constraint" that bothers me. Book covers, record labels, and such shouldn't be external constraints on people's following the MoS, but some folks seem to think that they should be. One example that someone brought up in a discussion is Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask), where the book's cover has Everything you always wanted to know about sex* with *BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK at the bottom. Should we attempt to reproduce that somehow in the title of our article? The way such things appear in so-called official sources (viz., packaging and promotion) aren't even style decisions at all, nor are they "common names"; they're design decisions that shouldn't affect our styling of titles of works in a consistent manner. Deor (talk) 00:13, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

And it's your "some folks seem to think that they should be" that bothers me -- because I'm someone who thinks that they should be, too! Why am I wrong?

One thing that the whole sad Star Trek Into Darkness imbroglio shows, I think, is that there are (a) not a few, but a whole lot of people who (b) don't just "think", but know that the subject's conventionally-rendered title should obviously be mirrored (in spelling, capitalization, and conventional punctuation) in the Wikipedia article's title. This second point is so obvious that people are now surprised that it wasn't in the MoS all along (or that it needs stating at all). —Steve Summit (talk) 00:36, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Then again I ask, What's the point of having a style manual (not just ours, but any) at all? Almost certainly, the majority of our articles about artistic works have titles that differ, in capitalization if nothing else, from the titles appearing on the works themselves, since for many, many works the title on the original "product" appears in all caps (e.g., A Christmas Carol, Meet the Beatles!) or all lowercase (With the Beatles, Wildflowers) or some other odd form. I don't know what you mean by "conventionally-rendered title"; but if a whole lot of people "know" that design = style, they pretty clearly know wrong. Deor (talk) 01:54, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Rob Sinden you write "WP:TITLEFORMAT (which is policy) directs you to WP:NCCAPS in the case of proper names." but one can play that game with dictionaries and end up with a silly definition. WP:AT is the policy this page is not policy and is only advisory in relation to policy -- it is not even a naming convention (the guidlines that supplement the AT policy), therefore the place to discuss this is at the discussion page of WP:TITLEFORMAT which is Wikipedia talk:Article titles. The other links you point to are there to supplement and enhance the policy but they should not contradict it. From which guideline do you get the idea from that "COMMONNAME would, it seems, defer to MOS for styling once the title has been decided per COMMONNAME"? -- PBS (talk) 20:04, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Because WP:COMMONNAME points to WP:NCCAPS for styling of proper names, and WP:NCCAPS points to MOS:CT for styling of composition titles. Therefore the policy tells us to use the guideline. --Rob Sinden (talk) 23:00, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

So, if we point the editor from here back to WP:COMMONNAME, we'd just be going round in circles! And to quote WP:NCCAPS: "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". --Rob Sinden (talk) 23:08, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

This is not like looking at the main MOS page and its subsidiary pages. AT is policy. A naming convention or any other guideline can explain and enhance policy, but they can not contradict it (this is exactly the same relationship as exists between WP:V and WP:RS "In the case of inconsistency between this policy [V] and the WP:IRS guideline, or any other guideline related to sourcing, this policy has priority."). Therefore the place to start and end such circular arguments is at the article titles policy page, not here. On the AT policy page there is a section called "Deciding on an article title" which suggests some principles to help decide on an appropriate name, common name is important but it is not the criteria. -- PBS (talk) 08:21, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

The title is not the same as the style. We can agree on a title, thats what WP:AT is for. The styling of said title is down to the MOS. --Rob Sinden (talk) 08:59, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Maybe WP:AT should have a warning like WP:V: "In the case of inconsistency between this policy [AT] and the WP:MOS guideline, or any other guideline related to styling, this policy has priority." --Enric Naval (talk) 09:28, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely not. They don't contradict each other. WP:AT is about the title, not the style. We seek consistency in style, and in capitalisation, as WP:NCCAPS attests. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:34, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

In Star Trek Into Darkness they contradicted each other, and it caused a lot of wasted editor time. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:52, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

No, they still don't contradict each other. There is a question as to whether "Into Darkness" is a subtitle or not, and that is one of the reasons the MOS would not apply. That, and a bunch of fanboys with no respect for Wikipedia policies and guidelines steam-rollered the change through. We should not be trying to change the guideline to accommodate a single article. --Rob Sinden (talk) 11:10, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

The pejorative term "a bunch of fanboys" does not advance the discussion. Plenty of the people in the ST[Ii]D imbroglio were arguing from perspectives of common usage or (what they saw as) common sense, not any kind of Star Trek (or xkcd) fanhood.

Dismissing arguments as coming from fanboys just invites equally destructive dismissals from the other side. (That is, I can easily imagine, but do not look forward to, hearing someone lamenting a "bunch of grammar Nazis with no respect for common sense stonewalling against any change", or something.) —Steve Summit (talk) 15:18, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Ha, yeah, my comments do seem a little harsh. And I'm sure I have been called such things as you suggest ;) --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:24, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

If as you say they do not contradict each other then what is the harm of adding the warning? -- PBS (talk) 13:12, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

It will cause more arguments than it solves. At the moment, it is clear. We choose a title for an article, then follow the guidelines for formatting that title based on WP:AT. When the editor is directed to WP:NCCAPS or MOS:CT for the formatting, they follow those guidelines. If we add the wording as you propose, and another editor disagrees with the format chosen by the first editor, the editor correctly following the MoS will be undermined, as the second editor will say "none of this matters - WP:COMMONNAME takes precedent", yet, WP:AT has already directed the first editor to the MoS for styling advice. A great big circular mess. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:27, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

If reliable sources consistently use a certain style, then the style is already decided by policy AT. MOS is used when sources don't have any consistent style. If else, this should be made clearer in the policy and in the guidelines (which can complement policy, but can't contradict it). --Enric Naval (talk) 14:26, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

No, we don't source formatting, we use the MoS for this, and as far as I'm aware, there is no provision at WP:AT that covers this. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:35, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

The debacle of Star Trek Into Darkness shows that we follow style in sources over internal rules of style. MOS editors can't make their own local consensus to override the community. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:42, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Making capitalization dependent on common use would be disastrous in at least two ways. First, it may be hard to determine common use. A regular search engine can distinguish between "jail" and "gaol", not between "NATO" and "Nato". This would lead to arguments. Secondly, commoner use, when discernible, can be perverse by the standards of non-promotional, literate English. Consider Japan, where a substantial minority of companies, bands, etc like to give themselves roman names even in the context of Japanese text. There's a Japanese belief that the choice between upper- and lowercase is somehow inherent to the name itself, and thus that (for example) "Ellegarden" is a "misspelling" of "ELLEGARDEN". Any search is likely to show that the fully capitalized form is commoner (because after all it is "correct" and the sensibly capitalized variant is "wrong"). The most avid of their anglophone fans agree. Japanese people are welcome to their (to me) slightly odd notions about case -- which actually is easily understood; after all, it's patterned on the current distinction between hiragana and katakana -- but I don't think such notions, or fandom, need affect an English-language encyclopedia. Moreover, if you accept commoner forms (however bizarre or daft) because they're commoner, I imagine there'll be calls for adoption of the "correct" capitalization, and certain companies (Sanyo was one) like to capitalize, I suppose in order to sear THEIR NAMES into the brains of potential customers. -- Hoary (talk) 09:31, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. See also MOS:TM: "Follow standard English text formatting and capitalization rules, even if the trademark owner considers nonstandard formatting "official"". --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:36, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

@ErikHaugen. What is the point about discussing whether "COMMONNAME should take precedence" on this talk page? That is a discussion that should take place on the talk page of WP:AT policy. which has sections on both Common name and Article title format the discussion if need should be on the talk page of Wikipedia:Article titles. The MOS is more directed at the situation of capital in names of items other than the subject of the article. For example we have an article on the State Opening of Parliament. In that there is a sentence in that article that starts "The Queen arrives at the Palace of Westminster in a horse-drawn coach.." This guideline covers the capitalisation of "queen" in that sentence along with "Palace of Westminster". The section WP:CT it is guidance for the use within articles, not about article titles which is covered by the article titles policy. The policy may include a see also line referring to WP:CT for further guidance, but if it does, and that guidance is found to contradict policy, then the guidance should be ignored (see WP:PG). Therefore the proposed amendment "WP:COMMONNAME takes precedence" is not relevant for this guideline. Although perhaps to make it clear the relationship between the AT policy and its naming conventions and other guidelines a similar sentence to that in WP:V should be added to the policy page, but this is not the place to discuss such an addition to WP:AT. -- PBS (talk) 13:12, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

There isn't really anything to discuss, as they do not contradict each other, rather they complement each other. No addition necessary to either page. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:17, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

"What is the point"—because it's about language that should appear on this page. Don't be surprised if people start discussing what should be on a particular guideline at that guideline's discussion page. "The section WP:CT it is guidance for the use within articles, not about article titles which is covered by the article titles policy."—But both should use the same capitalization (modulo the first letter/etc), so what is the point of making this distinction? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:08, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Difference between a name and its presentation

I have started a new sub-section because I think we need to discuss separately the issues of definition behind the statement that common-name policy should take precedence over manual-of-style considerations. Normally a unique entity has one name, e.g. "John Kennedy". It may have additional names, e.g. "Jack Kennedy". However, different forms are generally only regarded as different names if they are written and spoken differently. "John Kennedy (written) and "John Kennedy" (spoken) are not regarded as two different names. Conversely John Kennedy, John Kennedy, and john kennedy are all the same name. Generally, the name is regarded as being the same name whether it is written in bold or italic type, coloured black or green, written with every second letter capitalized, spoken with a rising intonation (in English), spoken loudly or softly, etc. What conventions are followed in this respect depends on the environment: in a text message it may be permissible to lowercase proper names; for published works such issues are clarified in the the publisher's manual of style. So, as a rule of thumb, I would suggest that "common name "should only be used to refer to a name that can be written or spoken and that characteristics that are peculiar to either written or spoken forms should be ignored. In my opinion, stating that common-name considerations take precedence over MoS considerations is thus based on a linguistic misconception. Whether the presentation of a name (case, font, colour, etc.) punctuation, and so on should follow sources is a separate issue (which in my opinion usually belongs in WP:MOS). --Boson (talk) 17:06, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Although I don't think this is stated very clearly, I think I'm in general agreement. The established CT guidelines are exceptionally clear, concise, and easy to follow. Although I do understand how a trademarked phrase could be a possible exception, the trademark that pertains to a movie title has to do with licensing and how the name is used on products: "The company licensed Star Trek Into Darkness™ toys" could be argued for, I suppose, except that as a licensed trademark used on a product, the phrase would come with other specs such as fonts—but we don't use a different font to refer to a trademarked phrase. "COMMONNAME" doesn't privilege trademark anyway, since a trademarked name would be an "official" name. When it's a movie or some other kind of composition title (even if the movie is part of a merchandising franchise), I don't see any reason at all to exclude it from CT guidelines, nor to change those excellent guidelines. Some style points are subject to debate, and carry semantic value. This is not one of them. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:40, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

See also MOS:TM. --Rob Sinden (talk) 10:44, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I think I agree, but I don't see any way to reconcile the decision at Talk:Star Trek Into Darkness with MOS:CT. (Unless "Into" is considered a compound preposition; "Star Trek In to Darkness" would be correct per MOS:CT. Powers ^T 14:40, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

It is easy to reconcile. See the hatnote at the top: For the style guideline on capitalization in article titles, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization). This guideline has little to do with article titles, it is to do with the formatting of words and phrases within articles where the word or phrase is not the article title. For iterations of the article title within that article then usually (but not always) the capitalisation will follow the article title under the MOS lead "Style and formatting choices should be consistent within an article, though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia as a whole". -- PBS (talk) 15:03, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

WP:NCCAPS points back here though: "In general, each word in English titles of books, films, and other works takes an initial capital, except for articles ("a", "an", "the"), the word "to" as part of an infinitive, prepositions and coordinating conjunctions shorter than five letters (e.g., "on", "from", "and", "with"), unless they begin or end a title or subtitle. Examples: A New Kind of Science, Ghost in the Shell, To Be or Not to Be, The World We Live In. For details, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Composition titles." --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:16, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I thought you agreed with my comment above "@ErikHaugen. .... 13:12, 1 February 2013 (UTC)". -- PBS (talk) 19:09, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

As I stated, the two are complementary, WP:AT for the title, WP:NCCAPS (and by extension MOS:CT) for the styling. --Rob Sinden (talk) 19:41, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I think it's best not to try and reconcile that one. I fought a long hard battle in favour of applying MOS:CT on that one and lost. Let's treat it as unique. --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:27, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I hate to ask and open old wounds, Rob, but could you summarize the prevailing argument for capitalizing into? That talk page is chaos. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:07, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Largely the arguments in favour of capitalising were due to the ambiguity of the title's structure and whether "into" came after an implied colon, and thus the beginning of a subtitle. Also, that it appears to be the "official" styling. We were holding off on a no consensus to capitalise for a while, before a webcomic brought attention to the discussion and brought with it a barrage of new input. --Rob Sinden (talk) 16:13, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

@Cynwolfe it is quite simple really, WP:AT is a policy based on few simple considerations of which usage in reliable sources is given the most weight, with caveats for certain problems that reliable sources throw up (eg two different things can not have the same article title, reliable sources don't all agree all the time) -- so further guidance is needed, etc). In contrast the MOS is a guideline based on a set of rules agreed among people who contribute to the MOS guidelines. Usually the two approaches end up with the same guidance, but occasionally there is disharmony. When that happens interested editors weigh up the the choices and decide which is most appropriate. Usually most editors most of the time will base their decisions on what is used in reliable sources (principle of least astonishment -- "it may be wrong but everyone is doing it") but some editors, either because they have a particular belief that there is only one correct "name", or because they think that the MOS rules should be followed no matter what (and probably half a dozen other reasons), will choose not to follow what is used in most reliable sources. In this specific case the consensus was to capitalise "Into2 with most saying their choice was based on common usage (in reliable sources). -- PBS (talk) 19:09, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

We don't source styling, we use the MOS for that. --Rob Sinden (talk) 19:39, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

That is not a universally held editorial opinion for article titles, which are covered by the WP:AT policy. That policy places the MOS styling as once of several factors that should be considered and weighted when deciding upon an article title. In the body of an article, the MOS often gives guidance that says follow the usage in reliable sources. For example in the style of date to use in articles about early modern history. -- PBS (talk) 14:15, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Capitalisation of "AT-LARGE" when not the first word of an article title

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Capitalisation_of_.22AT-LARGE.22_when_not_the_first_word_of_an_article_title. Thanks! -sche (talk) 16:48, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Conflict between MOS:CAPS and MOS

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion at the main MOS talk page

WP:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Common names directly conflicts with WP:Manual of Style#Animals, plants and other organisms. A discussion has been opened at WT:Manual of Style#Conflict between MOS:CAPS and MOS to resolve this conflict. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 21:51, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

"Doctrines" and "systems of thought" doesn't quite cover it.

We need to also cover the fact that systems of practice (kung fu, etc.), including professional disciplines (chiropractic, rocketry, whatever) are also not capitalized. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 22:30, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

"Movements" doesn't quite work

We have the problem that artistic movements (Art Nouveau, etc.) are conventionally capitalized, but need to distinguish these from movements in the other sense, like existentialism and veganism, and narrower creative concerns such as music and film genres, which are not capitalized. A further complication is ages/epochs, e.g. the Industrial Revolution on the large scale, and the Jazz Age on the smaller scale; these are almost always capitalized. Meanwhile centuries are not (on WP; actual reliable sources in the wild are divided on that, though increasingly leaning toward lower case). It's important that we clarify this stuff, because people deeply involved in all such topics have a strong tendency to reflexively capitalize them, even when this is clearly inappropriate, and will often resort to endlessly tendentious WP:Specialist style fallacy arguments in defending their typographic quirks, in the absence of something in MOS to point to that specifically contradicts them. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 22:37, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Contradiction and divergence at MOS:MUSIC

It seems at some point there has been local consensus at MOS:MUSIC#Capitalization to deviate from the MoS given at MOS:CT regarding composition titles that include parentheses. To my mind, we should not have this contradiction of these two closely connected (identical?) guidelines, as any reasons for divergence there would most likely also have cause for change on a wider scale. I tried to amend the guideline to be in line with this one, but this has been reverted. Previous discussions are at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters/Archive 8#Apparent conflict of guidelines and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Music#Capitalization, but think this should be discussed here, as any change there should be implemented here also, and vice versa. Any thoughts? --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:52, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

My preference is (basically) that the guideline here be changed to match the one at MOS:MUSIC rather than vice versa, but I agree that the conflict should be resolved. That's why I created the thread at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters/Archive 8#Apparent conflict of guidelines, though it didn't result in any actionable agreement. To avoid unnecessary repetition, I'd recommend that editors read that thread to see what arguments have already been advanced on both sides. Deor (talk) 16:02, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

It would be nice to see some evidence of what other style guides recommend. --Rob Sinden (talk) 16:21, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

It seems to be too minor a point to be treated in most of them—at least I can't find anything relevant in the Chicago Manual or Words into Type or the MLA Handbook. Deor (talk) 00:25, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I think it is important we find some kind of outside source to guide us on this. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:13, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me that I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (in Perfect Harmony) and Pretty Fly (for a White Guy) are unassailable: what possible reason could there be to capitalize the prepositions? So yes, this MOS should be amended to match MOS:MUSIC.

(Don't Fear) The Reaper seems wrong no matter how we do it. However, the capitalized 'The' is probably more easily defended. BTW, we say to capitalize the last word of a title. But there's no reason to capitalize the last word of a prefixed parenthetical. For example:

(I'm a) Stand by My Woman Man.

This would be handled properly by the proposal in the archives (capitalize the parenthetical part as if the parentheses did not exist).

There are some potential complications. With Laura (What's He Got That I Ain't Got), the parenthetical is not a continuation of the main title, so even if it began with an article or preposition, that would need to be capitalized. Unless there's supposed to be a comma there? I don't have a better example offhand, but I'm sure there are cases where simply removing the parentheses wouldn't work, and common sense would need to be used.

Okay: Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker) is in the info box Tear the Roof off the Sucker (Give Up the Funk). Obviously, treating that as a single line w/o parentheses wouldn't work. Similar titles, though nothing that would make a difference, are 1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin' New) • Cleaning This Gun (Come On In Boy) • Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning) • Country Grammar (Hot Shit).

Here's one where it does make a difference: Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American). It seems to me that the capital 'The' is correct, because there is no longer title *Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue the Angry American.

So I think we'd need to say: (1) if the parenthetical indicates the full title, or a longer title, of the song, then capitalize it as if the parentheses did not exist. However, if the parenthetical is an alternative title to the song, then capitalize it as if it stood alone. — kwami (talk) 00:04, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

That's basically Aervanath's suggestion under "Proposal" in the archived thread, and I would support (with maybe a bit of rewording) that solution both here and in MOS:MUSIC. Deor (talk) 00:45, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Could you propose the wording adjust my wording below? This is probably something we can take care of fairly easily. — kwami (talk) 01:18, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Hey, here's an excellent example: (Get A) Grip (On Yourself) → (Get a) Grip (on Yourself).

Another: I Remember Elvis Presley (The King Is Dead) and Pops, We Love You (A Tribute to Father). — kwami (talk) 00:49, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black): Cf. My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue).

I think I've taken care of all the singles from the 70s. There's not actually all that many, maybe a couple hundred altogether. — kwami (talk) 01:16, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

• Okay, then what capitalization should be used for It Takes a Little Rain (To Make Love Grow), the article that started this? To me, making "To" uncapitalized looks wrong. And can we please reach a consensus instead of going WP:WABBITSEASON — "it should be this way, no this way, no this way, no this way"? I see loads of discussion, but nothing that's even on the same planet as consensus. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 01:25, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

"It Takes a Little Rain (to Make Love Grow)", because the long title is "It Takes a Little Rain to Make Love Grow". You wouldn't capitalize the "to" there, and the song doesn't have an alternative title "To Make Love Grow". If you think that looks wrong, then you object to the entire point of the MOS:MUSIC version, and consensus is already against you there (at least at MOS:MUSIC). — kwami (talk) 01:29, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

MOS:MUSIC is against me, but MOS:CAPS isn't, then. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 01:46, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

And, per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, MOS:CT is the overriding guideline here. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:40, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Kwami, you've muddied the waters there a bit with including a load of examples where any change in the guideline would not make a difference. Rather than confuse the issue, how about we stick to examples that are relevant to this discussion. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:40, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I just did a Bing search for "It Takes a Little Rain (to Make Love Grow)" and out of the first sixty results (after that the results started to be about something other than the song), seventeen had "To" with 'T' capitalized and zero had it uncapitalized. (The rest were other variations not being considered here, such as all lower case, all upper case, or the article "a" capitalized.) It appears from this initial sample that organizations and people who post song titles on the Internet may not agree with the proposal below. I suspect that some of us who think "It Takes a Little Rain (to Make Love Grow)" looks wrong and "It Takes a Little Rain (To Make Love Grow)" looks right think so because we have an impression of seeing like occurrences the latter way for all our reading lives (in my case five decades). Some of the discussion has been about providing a logical rationale for "It Takes a Little Rain (to Make Love Grow)", but English is fraught with exceptions to logical rules, and I think the proposal goes against common practice from my experience. Someone could take the time to expand on my five-minute statistical study until they came up with a statistically sound result, but I would be surprised if it reached a different conclusion. I am assuming that because there is no authoritative guidance for this situation, we would want to be consistent with empirical practice. --hulmem (talk) 03:38, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Bing/Google searches on this are not useful, for several reasons, the most important and obvious of which is because they report results from people who don't know how to write and don't care. Millions upon millions of them. It's patently corrupt data. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 19:41, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Also, it's a shame some of the commenters here have gone full blast moving WP song articles to "fix" this problem prior to a clear consensus. Until and unless a consensus is reached it might make more sense to just leave WP song articles having this issue as they are. --hulmem (talk) 03:38, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

This needs to stop immediately. It's a blatant WP:FAITACCOMPLI action, a form of WP:GAMING the system, and per previous WP:ARBCOM rulings, it can result in blocks for disruption. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 19:41, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

There is consensus, which has been enshrined at MOS:MUSIC. Of course, we can always change the consensus, but claiming the consensus doesn't exist because you haven't signed on to it is not a legitimate argument.

If we look to common practice, we'll find that many many sources capitalize every single word in a title. We could do that too, but it would require some discussion. — kwami (talk) 04:38, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

The "consensus", is just WP:LOCALCONSENSUS at MOS:MUSIC. Whilst I think we all agree the two should be in line, we can't impose the local consensus there at the "parent" MoS here without further discussion. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:13, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I have reverted the clearly controversial and quite frankly WP:POINTY moves by kwami until we have reached a resolution. Not cool, man. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:34, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

You apparently don't know the meaning of POINT. There have been a series of move requests which have gone this way, and it follows the MOS, so the moves were entirely appropriate. It's your reverts that I would call pointy. — kwami (talk) 11:34, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

As you are well aware, there are two conflicting MOS that can equally be applied to these titles. To unhesitantly move these articles whilst you were fully aware there was a discussion going on trying to resolve this issue could be considered pointy. --Rob Sinden (talk) 11:38, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you included "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" amongst these moves either, "A" comes after punctuation whichever way you look at it. --Rob Sinden (talk) 11:01, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

That doesn't mean it would be capitalized. You capitalize the beginning of a sentence, not after punctuation. — kwami (talk) 11:34, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Which highlights a problem with your proposal below, as there would be an element of interpretation as to whether "the parenthetical indicates the long form of the title" or not. --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:58, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I think the case could be made to capitalise the parenthetical parts of "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (in Perfect Harmony)" and "Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)". The brackets are there for a reason, as if to say that there are two distinct phrases (or part phrases). If you say them out loud, try saying them with a pause. I think capitalisation could make sense and are not "unassailable" as an editor above claims. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:19, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps another thing to consider would be whether the part in brackets could be read as a standalone title. "To Make Love Grow" could be. Or we should treat the same way we treat subtitles in films, books, etc. Just putting it out there ;) --Rob Sinden (talk) 10:58, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

• Note: In an effort to get more participation here, I've left a (neutral) note on the talk pages of all editors who participated in last year's discussion of this topic, alerting them to the presence of this thread. If I've missed anyone, let me know and I'll correct the oversight. Deor (talk) 17:44, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Suggested guideline

For titles with parenthetical phrases, capitalize the main part as you would if it stood alone (e.g. "(Don't Fear) The Reaper"). Similarly, if the parenthetical is an alternative title or a sub-title, capitalize it as if it stood alone (e.g. I Remember Elvis Presley (The King Is Dead)). However, if the parenthetical indicates the long form of the title, capitalize it as you would the long title without the parentheses (e.g. "(Get a) Grip (on Yourself)"). — kwami (talk) 01:29, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose for now, until we have further evidence showing how other established style guidelines handle this and further discussion. However, I would support over-ruling the WP:LOCALCONSENSUS at MOS:MUSIC to bring that guideline back in line with this, the parent guideline, until we have discussed fully. In fact, there should be no separate guideline at MOS:MUSIC to avoid future divergence, instead, editors should be directed to MOS:CT for guidance. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:13, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

That would be quite disruptive, and presupposes that the discussion would decide against it. — kwami (talk) 11:50, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Not at all. I think we're all in agreement that the two should be aligned. And it is what is decided here, and not the WP:LOCALCONSENSUS that takes precedent. We need to avoid the situation from happening again. It's the two conflicting guidelines that causes the disruption. --Rob Sinden (talk) 11:55, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Okay, per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, I've removed the separate guideline at MOS:MUSIC to avoid future divergence, instead directing editors here to MOS:CT for guidance. Whatever we decide here will apply to any composition titles with parentheses, not just songs. And I'm not pre-supposing anything. We cannot have conflicting guidelines. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:27, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I think that was a bad idea, Robsinden; I'm not going to revert you, but if your change leads to requested moves for song articles, I certainly will. We're discussing the status of the recommendations at both MOS:MUSIC and MOS:CAPS here, and edits to either guideline page that privilege one of the conflicting formulations should not be made until a consensus is reached here. Deor (talk) 15:33, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I think the bad idea was the divergence of the two guidelines in the first place, and this needed to be addressed. Any WP:RMs can be opposed pending outcome of this discussion. Kwami pointily moved and requested moves against this MoS to the local MoS while in full knowledge and participation of this discussion. This is far more disruptive, and illustrates the necessity to bring the two into line asap. As far as priveliging one or other of the guidelines, per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, MOS:CT will always have priority. Whatever we decide here is the guideline, not what is locally decided at MOS:MUSIC. --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:43, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

The divergence may not actually be a problem. It may be that song titles have unique properties that make the MOS:MUSIC solution more appropriate than it is for other types of works. Powers ^T 00:29, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

• Support, with perhaps a few changes for clarity. My proposed rewording:

If a title contains parenthetical material, capitalize the part outside the parentheses as if it were a complete title—e.g., "(Don't Fear) The Reaper". The words within the parentheses should be

• capitalized as if they were a separate title if they function as an alternative title or subtitle—e.g., "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)", "Pops, We Love You (A Tribute to Father)"
• capitalized as if the parentheses did not exist if they function as a syntactic extension of the title—e.g. "(You're the) Devil in Disguise", "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (in Perfect Harmony)", "(Get a) Grip (on Yourself)"

There will always be particular instances in which the function of the parenthetical matter is ambiguous or open to debate, but I don't think that should prevent us from arriving at an acceptable guideline here. In MOS matters, there are always edge cases that need to be discussed individually. (And I'd really like to see someone justify "(You're The) Devil in Disguise", which is what the MOS:CAPS guideline recommends as currently worded.) Deor (talk) 15:33, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

What do you reckon to Kwami's take on "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" and how would that fit in with your rewording? Personally, I see it as a subtitle / alternate title, but Kwami obviously doesn't. How would we handle other titles that could be construed as either a continuation or a subtitle? Do we have any examples of off-Wiki style guides adopting this policy? --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:43, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

(Sorry for all the questions, I'm not trying to be awkward, just trying to pre-empt situations in order to avoid arguments later on). --Rob Sinden (talk) 16:06, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

That's one of the edge cases that could go either way. After looking at the lyrics (I'm not familiar with the song), I'm inclined to say that the "A" should be lowercase, since a repeated refrain in the song is "Gimme, gimme, gimme, a man after midnight"; but I could be convinced otherwise. As I've said above, I don't think there are any "examples of off-Wiki style guides" adopting either policy. It's just not something that comes up that often in normal prose, though I'm sure that publishers of other encyclopedic works have their own in-house methods of ensuring consistency. Since you seem to be an advocate of the status quo at MOS:CAPS, why not take up my challenge and explain why "(You're The) Devil in Disguise" is a desirable styling of the title? Deor (talk) 16:10, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I think just because there is a continuation in the lyrics is not reason enough to assume that "they constitute a syntactic extension of the title". There is punctuation there, and either part can be read as a phrase in itself. And as yet I'm not an advocate of either solution yet. Certainly in cases such as "(Theme from) XXX", I think I advocate the lowercase option, and I'm pretty much on side with "(You're the) Devil in Disguise" following the lowercase option too, but I'm not convinced when it comes to some of the examples given above, such as "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (in Perfect Harmony)" and "Pretty Fly (for a White Guy)", as there is an element of subtitle in the phrasing of these. I'm worried that we might be missing a point and risk becoming unencyclopedic if we start opening up the guidelines and titles to interpretation, and think we really need to make this watertight if we can. --Rob Sinden (talk) 16:22, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

How about we don't capitalise if it can only be construed as a continuation? - i.e. "You're the" or "Theme from" don't make sense by themselves, but "A Man After Midnight" does. This would also keep "It Takes a Little Rain (To Make Love Grow)" capitalised. We do have the additional problem with the poetic nature of song titles and the interpretation thereof. --Rob Sinden (talk) 16:32, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

How would we possibly determine "only"? What you're actually advocating is that we should capitalize all phrases, which would require the reader to understand what a grammatical phrase is before they can capitalize anything. This has no support from published style guidelines. — kwami (talk) 01:56, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

As far as I can make out, the other suggestion doesn't seem to have a basis in published style guidelines either, and also doesn't seem to reflect practice. I'd love to see some examples of style guidelines for this situation, but they don't seem to be easy to find. I suggest we don't move forward until we can find a style guideline to follow. --Rob Sinden (talk) 10:28, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

• Support: MOS:MUSIC needs to say nothing on this at all if it can't stop conflicting with the more general guideline at MOS:CAPS. There's nothing wrong with topical guidelines coming up with details that aren't covered by the general one, but when the general one specifically addresses the exact same case, the topical one is just a LOCALCONSENSUS and a blatant WP:POVFORK (in WP policy circles, that also constitutes WP:PARENT). I would suggest that what the guidelines should agree upon should really be discussed at WT:MOS proper, with a WP:RFC tag, for a broader consensus. Discussions at WT:MOSCAPS itself tend toward forming LOCALCONSENSUS nonsense against MOS. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 19:37, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

To be clear, do you support the new proposal, or the proposal that we remove specific information from MOS:MUSIC and defer to MOS:CT? --Rob Sinden (talk) 19:53, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. Would those editors who think it is clever to move articles while this discussion is ongoing please desist? Requested Moves are pointy. FWIW, my preferred solution is that all article titles should be in lowercase capitals and the tech guys should ensure that no variation is possible. Not only would it save WP from lots of unnecessary "discussions" but also save a few good editors, too. Thanks. --Richhoncho (talk) 19:48, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. Have you considered closing the debates as a non-involved party? I reverted the pointy moves. What do you mean by lowercase capitals though? --Rob Sinden (talk) 19:53, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Response to Rob Sinden. Lowercase capitals - when all words are in capitals, but the first letter of each word is in a bigger capital. Did I use the wrong term? One typeface, no italics, all bold, no variation possible. No longer a need to move any article because of incorrect capitalization in the name space. (You have to see the new articles with a surname in lowercase {John brown) because WP rules are sometimes too complex. Deletion of millions of unnecessary redirects (john brown, again). Oh, well, I can dream, but I am happy to support the outcome here - whatever it is. Cheers. --Richhoncho (talk) 20:24, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

That's usually called "caps & small caps", but I can't see that it wouldn't have the same problems as our current caps & lowercase. You want THE LORD OF THE RINGS?

Response to Deor. My main point is that editors wouldn't have a choice. This means no more discussion like this one and a standardized WP. Yes, it is a good idea because every article title is then in the same format. This is not to say it's got a snowball in hell's chance of being adopted, because, some of us (and I don't discount myself), love the debate too much. Besides how often does capitalization have to be discussed before we all realise it's not what WP is about! Cheers. --Richhoncho (talk) 20:55, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

• Alternative suggestion to avoid further interpretation (building on Deor's - my additions in bold):

If a title contains parenthetical material, capitalize the part outside the parentheses as if it were a complete title—e.g., "(Don't Fear) The Reaper". The words within the parentheses should be

• capitalized as if they were a separate title if they can be read as a standalone phrase or if they function as a separate alternative title or subtitle—e.g., "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)", "Pops, We Love You (A Tribute to Father)", "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man after Midnight)"
• capitalized as if the parentheses did not exist if the text enclosed in the parentheses can only function as a syntactic extension of the title—e.g. "(You're the) Devil in Disguise", "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (in Perfect Harmony)", "(Get a) Grip (on Yourself)", "(Theme from) The Monkees"

This addresses some of my concerns. --Rob Sinden (talk) 19:53, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Oppose. Too complicated in practice, zero support from published style guidelines. — kwami (talk) 02:02, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Can you provide examples of published style guidelines? I was having no luck finding anything. This would be really useful to determine how to proceed. --Rob Sinden (talk) 08:58, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not having a lot of luck either. I think my basic objection is that we shouldn't capitalize things as titles if they don't stand alone as titles. — kwami (talk) 00:38, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

• Support. Rob's alternative suggestion is also acceptable. Powers ^T 00:29, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
• weak support. To make the guidance clearer, add Pretty Fly (for a White Guy) as an example. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:49, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
• comment I was proposing the basic idea. I think Deor's examples are better. However, I'm doubtful about Deor's phrase "syntactic extension". Subtitles are very often syntactic extensions. We shouldn't have to delve into philosophy to figure out whether to capitalize a title. Long/short form is an easy concept to grasp, and is usually pretty clear. The objection seems to be motivated by Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!, but I'm not sure it's a good idea to shape the guidelines around one problematic case. Better IMO to craft a guideline that we think will work in general, and then discuss the few problematic cases individually. — kwami (talk) 02:02, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

No, this is just one obvious example. There were others that seemed inappropriate. "Fool (If You Think It's Over)" and "You Never Miss a Real Good Thing (Till He Says Goodbye)" are others that my wording would apply to, where the bracketed portion could be read either as a running phrase or a phrase in its own right. But still, would be nice to see how outside style guidelines handle these. --Rob Sinden (talk) 11:39, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

• Support, I dig the examples proposed here and consider this a good choice of style. It's always a good idea to be consistent, not only to avoid unnecessary edit-warring over which version is preferred, but also for (long-time-)readers this is actually useful. After a while of reading, they will also recognise this pattern we use in the titles and will have it easier to find the right article title. And which style we use in the end is basically a matter of taste. We could do it just like this if we actually wanted to, except that it'd look rather unprofessional to certain people ;-) --The Evil IP address (talk) 23:19, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
• Support, though I'm wary of the last sentence on extended titles. I support it, but think that in practice it might be hard to grasp for an editor who lacks outside experience as a copyeditor or style aficionado.

van Dyke or Van Dyke?

Lets say the persons name is Tom van Dyke (with the "v" lower case). An editor has stated that when we use just last name in the article, the "v" must be capitalized. ("In 1982 Van Dyke bought a car.", rather than "In 1982 van Dyke bought a car." - is that correct? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:31, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

I believe it is. Rather like capitalizing "A" or "The" when they start a book title, but not in the middle. If you don't capitalize, it looks kinda like "1982 van Dyke" is the guy's name. — kwami (talk) 00:30, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Unicode vs unicode, proper noun vs. common adjective.

So I've come across a difference of opinion with another editor, and I'd like to get a more informed opinion on this one. We agree that it is properly capitalized as a noun, eg. "This script is in Unicode", but not as an adjective, eg. "this Unicode/unicode script". What do you guys think? Is there a difference between the standard itself as a proper noun, and usage as a common adjective? VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 19:58, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

On closer inspection, my perception is not internally consistent. Please disregard. VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 02:47, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Navy or navy

There seems to be a running dispute which I've accidentally wandered into and I'd like to get clarified. When speaking of a specific navy, such as the United States Navy, I think we all agree that the whole thing is capitalized. However, when you omit the United States part but are still speaking of a specific navy (obvious from context) I believe it should be "Navy". As in "The Navy has multiple submarines" which is different from "many countries have a navy". This is consistent with the NYT, AP and the US Navy themselves. The only thing it isn't consistent with (according to some people) is the Wiki MOS. I believe the MOS is simply ambigious and should be re-written to match the rest of the world. Using "navy" everywhere when referring to the US Navy looks extremely strange to my eye. Same thing for Army versus army. This is slightly different than the Marine versus marine topic above (which is speaking about a member of the force), but for the record, I agree with the NYT there as well and their rationale for following previous style (such as Catholic speaking of a person who follows the Catholic religion) makes sense. Kchinger (talk) 13:53, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

to match the rest of the world—A lot of the world would capitalize the way we do. This ngram suggests—even without discounting chapter and section headings—that the way we do it is more common. I always mess up ngram analysis, hopefully you can tell me what I'm doing wrong here. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 15:32, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, for one thing, you used "American Army", which people don't say anymore. If you used "United States" instead you get a very different result as shown here. However, I don't think any of that is relevant since what we're talking about is the noun without the identifier. No one disagrees that United States Army is correct (at least they shouldn't), it's whether it's Army or army when speaking about the US Army but leaving off the US part.--Kchinger (talk) 15:42, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

When the word navy refers to a specific navy, such as the US Navy or the Royal Navy, then the word navy becomes a proper noun (rather than a common noun) and therefore is correctly typed, printed, or written as Navy with an uppercase N – even where the adjectival prefix US is omitted.

An omission of the modifier US does not change the need to capitalize Navy – as long as Navy refers to a specific navy.

Best wishes to all from a former Naval officer and a submariner forever,

Doc.

DocRushing (talk) 16:10, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

I think, if you're using our manual of style, that it might depend on the syntactic context: "There are Navy jobs that fit all backgrounds and interests."(maybe? I'm not sure) but "America’s navy offers careers and jobs." Both sentences are taken from here, where a different style guide is used—I modified the capitalization of the second to match our style. I don't think either guide is incorrect, they're just different. The question here is whether we should change our manual of style. I don't think we could make the change suggested here, though, without being inconsistent or without changing a lot of the rest of it. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 16:34, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

No one disagrees that United States Army is correct—Right; but that is why your ngram isn't very useful; I don't think anyone is arguing that "US Army" should be written "US army". The point of my ngram was to find cases where the army in question was obviously a specific army, but it wasn't being referred to by its "official" name. That is the question, right? What does an ngram that demonstrates capitalization of the official name show here? In any case, I think my ngram at least demonstrates that our style guide's preference is legitimate and in wide use; your "rest of the world" characterization is off. Where do we go from here? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 16:34, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

So I don't think either ngram is all that useful. The difference is a style difference, and style differences change over time. I've found that the Chicago Manual of Style uses the lowercase "navy" whereas the AP style guide (and as a result almost all journalistic style guides and house styles) uses "Navy". Publishers tend to use the Chicago manual, journalists the AP. I think the Wiki MOS just needs to pick one and be clear which one. Right now I don't think it's clear which one is supposed to be used. Interestingly, the AP guide only affords the uppercase to the US Navy, not other navies of the world. Perhaps to be in keeping with the international encyclopedic nature of Wikipedia the lowercase Chicago style would be better. I'd prefer the AP style myself because I just think it looks so much better, but I don't get to choose what's right. --Kchinger (talk) 17:04, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

That and (for this specific case, "Navy" vs. "navy") the Chicago style guide is typically used in history topics. :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:11, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

This is the same argument which comes up with phrases like the society when referring to organizations such as the Society of Jesus and the university in any number of university articles. My reading of the MOS is that they should not be capitalized, but I find them frequently capitalized. I don't see it explicitly in the MOS, but in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Institutions all the examples are lower case. If that's our rule, it should be explicit. Many institutions capitalize their own university name in their own publications e.g. "University, when referring to the University of Rochester, is always capitalized", but I don't think that applies in a general encyclopedia. Thank you. SchreiberBike (talk) 18:03, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

This is weird – my intuition tells me to use a capital S in the Society, a small U in the university, and is mostly indifferent about the Navy vs the navy. (This probably just means that my intuition is full of crap, though.) Cf also the moon vs the Moon (when specifically referring to Earth's natural satellite), the internet vs the Internet, etc. — A. di M.  10:36, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I think the University takes the capital U in the very specific case that the phrase is a shorthand for the University of This or That, a proper noun. I think that, even in an encyclopedia, if we were to use that shorthand, then it should take the capital U. The question is whether we ought to use that shorthand at all.

For some reason I feel this is maybe a bit clearer for my undergrad school, Caltech, which in its own publications is sometimes called the Institute (short for California Institute of Technology). You wouldn't naturally call it an institute (it's a "school" or a "university"), and when you call it the Institute, well, that's a proper noun. If we call it that, in its article, then it ought to take the capital I. But is there any good reason to call it that? Perhaps not. --Trovatore (talk) 12:55, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The simple fact is most people use too many capital letters. Further, many sources use funny capitalization (i.e. "Air Force" when referring to the USAF). This is the Specialist style fallacy. Some USAF publication (or Caltech, or whatever) might be the last word on things related to their own sphere, they are not style guides. Wikipedia is a generalist publication. It ought not to adopt unique vocabulary, style or the other trappings of technical and specialist publications. Frankly, I like the present rule for the simple reason that it is simple. Do we really want a rule that has eighty-five exceptions? I have honestly heard it said that we ought to write, "He wants to be president," but also "The President today said." Why not just keep to the old, simple, rule? Is there a need for a confusing change? Paul, in Saudi (talk) 15:57, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The simple fact is most people use too many capital letters— Says who? You? The AP would say Chicago style doesn't use enough. I hardly think there are 85 exceptions. If you would have used a long form of an institution name with capitals, but are instead using a shortened form of the full name for the sake of brevity or ease of reading or tone or because you're a slow typist or whatever you want, then the capital letters remain. Seems pretty simple to me. The present rule is not only no simpler than the AP style rule, it goes against many people's intuition, which makes it hard to learn. And for the record, "Air Force" looks perfectly normal to me when referring to USAF. This is hardly the "trappings of technical and specialist publications" and to portray it as such is disingenous. The Associated Press, New York Times, and most other major (and minor) journalistic outfits are far from "specialist publications". Kchinger (talk) 18:29, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

To me it's perfectly clear that we should capitalize Institute if it's being used as shorthand for California Institute of Technology. That's just a general rule of English orthography — capitalize proper nouns. The question is whether or not we ought to use that shorthand (which is not really on topic at the capital-letters page). --Trovatore (talk) 16:35, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I am very sorry I have upset you, Kchinger. Please let me know when your improvement of the language is complete and I shall enforce those rules. Paul, in Saudi (talk) 03:41, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it comes across in some of the foregoing, but I think the main problem is that a rule of English (regardless of any style guides) is that nouns (and some other parts of speech) used in proper names are capitalized but a word like "army" or "president" can be used either as

• a common noun (unambiguous in "any army in the world"),
• an alternative proper name (fairly unambiguous in the complete sentence "Your contract is with the Army." or
• as part of a proper name (usually unambiguous in "the United States Army" but potentially ambiguous in "the army of the United States");

however sometimes only the writer can say whether the word was being used as a common noun or as (part of) a proper name. If I write "The presidents of France, Germany, and America . . .", the relevant words are clearly being used as common nouns, but if the next sentence refers back to "the president of France" (or "the president of America", or "the president of the United States"), it may not be clear to everybody, including a typesetter who is not the author, that "president" is being used as a common noun. So some style guides may (over-) simplify the rules; if the MoS wants to do this, it should state so explicitly. --Boson (talk) 12:09, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I endorse using the capital when it's clear that one is referring specifically to the United States Navy. Since its usually after an initial mention that includes the full name, it is no different than referring to someone after the first mention of them by last name. In other words, just as one would say John Smith was blah blah. Smith was also this and that., it is correct to say The United States Navy is the main margins force if the US. The Navy has many bases. Likewise with the US Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, or Congress. (In each of those cases I just used, the capital is appropriate because I am using a short form of a proper noun that itself is still a proper noun because it unambiguously refers to a particular, distinct entity.) oknazevad (talk) 14:33, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I hear the consensus above as favoring the capitalization of generic names for institutions when it is clear which institution is being referred to or when the full name of the institution has been used earlier in the text. However, I read the MOS as saying that we should not capitalize in those cases.

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Institutions says, (table formatting removed)

• Generic words for institutions (university, college, hospital, high school) do not take capitals:
  

Incorrect || (generic): || The University offers programs in arts and sciences.

Correct || (generic): || The university offers programs in arts and sciences.

Correct || (title): || The University of Delhi offers programs in arts and sciences.

Is the consensus above against the MOS, or am I misunderstanding? Thanks, SchreiberBike (talk) 03:39, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

My view is that it is not a question of it being "clear what institution is being referred to". Rather, it's a question of whether the word is being used as shorthand for the full name.

So, even if it's clear that we're talking about the University of Kansas, it's perfectly fine to use the university, with the minuscule u, if you're using university as a description of KU (which is, after all, a university). However, if you're using the word as short for University of Kansas, then you ought to capitalize it, because it's a proper noun. --Trovatore (talk) 05:50, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't see a consensus to back off from what MOS:CAPS says. If we capitalized all the words that refer to specific entities, we'd capitalize a whole bunch of things, far from avoiding unnecessary caps as the MOS recommends; where would we draw the line? If you think we should change it to recommend caps for certain uses, make a specific proposal to that effect in an RFC. Dicklyon (talk) 05:58, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Trovatore. Speaking without reference to the MoS, if a noun (preceded by, for instance, "the" or "this") is used to refer back to something known that was previously mentioned (an anaphoric reference), then lowercase is appropriate; if the noun is used as an alternative proper name to refer directly to the same institution (the real-world entity, rather than a grammatical antecedent), then uppercase would be appropriate. As a simple test: if "the" could be replaced by "this" (without altering the author's intended meaning), lowercase is appropriate. For members of a particular university, the word "University" may be seen as a proper name (in the same way as "the Queen" is an alternative proper name for Queen Elizabeth II in Britain), but this is less likely in a more general context, such as Wikipedia, so the example given in the MoS seems appropriate - at least as a rule of thumb. --Boson (talk) 11:19, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I admit to being unskilled in the details of grammar. I think I've learned the basics of anaphoric references and understand that they would not be capitalized. I've gone to look at some featured articles about universities to see how they deal with the issue and I am finding what seems to me to be inconsistent usage or maybe I'm still not understanding. Would this work as a rule?

• If the the University of Kansas could be substituted for the university in a sentence, then university should be capitalized.

Thanks for helping clarify this for me. SchreiberBike (talk) 02:57, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

No, I don't agree with that formulation. The question is not whether the University of Kansas could be substituted and it would still make sense. The question is whether the phrase is being used as a short version of the University of Kansas. That's a question of fact, not style, and no style rule can be written that solves it for you — you have to really figure out whether that is or should be the intent of the text in the case you happen to be looking at. --Trovatore (talk) 03:07, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Even if the generic term is being used to refer to the specific entity, why capitalize it? Are there style guides that say to do so? Here a university's style guide, a supplement to the AP guide, lowercases "university" when referring to itself (though it doesn't specifically say to do so; as in 'Capitalize the formal names of schools, academic departments and divisions of the university.'). Here is another; they say 'use “the university” (lowercase)' to refer to themselves. Another says 'University, by itself, meaning Duke, is never capitalized.' And another, 'Lowercase "university" when referring to Virginia Tech in text.' Does the AP guide say to capitalize such? I can't find a copy. Dicklyon (talk) 04:56, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

If you're using the term as a generic term, even referring to the specific entity, then it's lowercase. If you're using it as a short version of the name of the entity, then it's uppercase. This is grammar, not style. --Trovatore (talk) 05:13, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

OK, then, where's the grammar guide that backs you up on that assertion? Dicklyon (talk) 06:04, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Any one that says names are proper nouns. Shouldn't be hard to find. --Trovatore (talk) 07:02, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Right, but certain times the difference between using a generic term and using a name is semantically immaterial. In the article The Dark Side of the Moon, “The Dark Side of the Moon” and “the album” would mostly be interchangeable; likewise, in an article about the United States Navy, “the [United States] Navy” and “the navy” would in principle be interchangeable... but I think that using both “the Navy” and “the navy” to refer to it in the same article would be potentially confusing. — A. di M.  09:00, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

If you're talking about The Dark Side of the Moon and you call it the album, that's clearly a description (meaning if you use the capital A, it's wrong). It doesn't make sense as a short version of the name — the word album doesn't even appear in the name.

As to potential for confusion, sure, that's a point for editors to take into account when writing the article, to be weighed against whatever advantage they think there is in using a shortened proper name. There may not even be a lot of situations where shortened proper names make sense. But if you do use one, you should obviously capitalize it. --Trovatore (talk) 14:30, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm still trying to get clarification on this because this comes up frequently and is the same issue as Navy/navy. I'll use University of Oxford as an example and link to this version to try to keep things clear. The first paragraph uses the phrase "The University grew rapidly from 1167 ..." The same paragraph includes "... has been used in official university publications". Are both uses correct? In both, it's clear that they are referring to Oxford, the full name could be substituted for university, and it seems like they are using university as "shorthand for the full name". Is there agreement here as to what is right? Is there agreement here as to what MOS:CAPS#Institutions says we should do? Thanks, SchreiberBike (talk) 04:32, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

No, capitalization is not necessary in either case, so per MOS:CAPS, WP prefers to use lowercase. Dicklyon (talk) 05:05, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Capitalization of these one-word shortenings of institution names is usually done only by authors with some kind of affiliation with the institution. When you use a capital in phrases like "the Queen", "the President", "the University", "the Navy", "the Society", it's almost equivalent to writing "our queen", "our president", "our university", "our navy", "our society". Because of Wikipedia's NPOV policies we don't write in the first person, and we should also not use honorific capitals like this. Indefatigable (talk) 15:29, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

• Both navies have ordered the new technology ... The British and US navies have ordered the new technology ... The US navy has ordered the new technology. Tony (talk) 12:11, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Each of those first two examples is correct, but the third one is wrong – because US Navy clearly and unmistakably refers to one specific navy – exactly as though it were written, typed, or printed in full as United States Navy.

This is not a new, strange, different, variant, or alternative principle; it's precisely the same principle which "everyone" in our school system learned in past years, starting in the fourth grade.

Questions and uncertainties about this principle have begun to bubble up to the surface partly due to the failure of many teachers, many schools, many school systems, and even a few textbooks – due to the failure of them to teach this principle, along with much other material.

Such questions and uncertainties graphically illustrate, in many instances, the dismal failure of our educational system to prepare our students as well as they should, and as well as they have in the past.

In past years "everyone" (with a few occasional exceptions, of course) knew how to recognize a proper noun and when to use an uppercase letter.

The principle and the grammar rule have not changed; only the teaching of them, the learning of them, and the observance of them have changed.

Doc.

DocRushing (talk) 16:52, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

This same subject has recently come under discussion on the talk page of another user ("The ed17").
In the hope that it may help here, I now take the liberty of posting a copy of it here:

Hello! I changed all instances of "navy" to "Navy" in USS Iowa turret explosion, then noticed afterward you had previously undone a similar edit, giving the reason of "(undo - it's "U.S. Navy" or "navy")". This is incorrect according to Wikipedia's style guideline found here.

Formal names of military units, including armies, navies, air forces, fleets, regiments, battalions, companies, corps, and so forth, are proper nouns and should be capitalized. However, the words for types of military unit (army, navy, fleet, company, etc.) do not require capitalization if they do not appear in a proper name. Thus, the American army, but the United States Army.

Navy (short for the full proper name United States Navy), is a proper noun and thus requires capitalization :)

--CumbiaDude (talk) 23:28, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Actually, this is the current topic of a discussion on the talk page of that guidelines, and it looks like that is going against that view. ;-) Typical usage on Wikipedia and in the world is "navy", as far as I know. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 23:38, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

CumbiaDude, you're exactly right!  Hang in there, stick to your guns, and keep your powder dry.

Your corrections comply with a principle which has been settled, taught, learned, and practiced for many decades.

Simply stated, when the word navy clearly refers to a specific navy, such as the US Navy or the Royal Navy, even in the absence of a preceding adjectival expression, that word then and there functions as a proper noun, and it therefore requires an uppercase initial letter.

However, there are a few style books and a few house style sheets which defy the logic of the established decision rules for what's a proper noun and what's properly capitalized.

Further, there's also a small group of users at the Wikipedia who appear to be on a crusade to defy and oppose the accepted grammar rule and to follow the lead of the alternative opposing view – and to force that variant view into the Wikipedia MoS and therefore onto the rest of our part of the world.

Please note that most of those minority activists – the ones who seek to change the old rules – appear not to have the advantage of extensive qualifications (education, training, expertise, and experience away from the Wikipedia) in grammar, writing, rewriting, and proofreading.

One of them refers to the erroneous lowercase letters as "typical usage", and another calls it "standard English usage".

Do not believe them, because they're absolutely wrong on that point.

Besides, Theodore Bernstein, one of my heroes, a long-time and revered assistant managing editor and adjunct professor at Columbia University, has forcefully said that rarely can we find truth in grammar or anything else merely by counting noses or a show of hands.

Again, CumbiaDude, hang in there!

As always, best wishes to all,

Doc.

DocRushing (talk) 01:20, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate your opinion, but characterizing the Chicago Manual of Style as a minority activist is a bit much, I think... Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 05:00, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, Chicago might have great hot dogs, but I'd have to disagree with Chicago - abbreviating "United States Navy" as "navy" would be the same as abbreviating "Theodore Roosevelt" as "roosevelt", IMHO. It's still a proper noun, even in the shortened form. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 05:05, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, that's fair, we all have our own opinions ;-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 05:56, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

As I said above, there are, among others, several style books and several house style sheets which defy the logic of the established decision rules for what's a proper noun and what's properly capitalized.

The Chicago style is an example of that on this particular point; that is, on this point the Chicago style defies the logic of the established decision rules for what's a proper noun and what's properly capitalized.

Many years ago one of my professors expressed the view that some of the style books, some of the house style sheets, and some of the organizations go out of their way to attract attention to themselves by their deliberate nonconformance.

She also explained that some of the nonconformist tendencies (on the question of capitalization of proper nouns) appear to be grounded in part in typographic history – an attempt to simplify and speed up the old process of manual typesetting and, later, the use of Linotype and other such labor-intensive processes.

Nonetheless, proper nouns require uppercase initial letters, and to fail and refuse to capitalize them is to defy and ignore a clear and well established rule of grammar.

At the Wikipedia there is a small group of users who appear to be on a crusade to defy and oppose the accepted grammar rule, to follow the lead of the alternative opposing view, and to force that variant view into the Wikipedia MoS.

There's a simple question:   Do we prefer to follow an undeniably correct rule of grammar, or are we willing to follow the poor example of an ill-guided tendency?

In other words, shall we choose to follow those style books which respect and follow an established rule of grammar, or shall we choose to follow one or more other style books which defy and oppose a time-tested, time-proved, time-honored rule of grammar?

Shall we do it the right way, or shall we do it a wrong way and try to pretend that it's OK because someone else has done it wrong?

The proper way to resolve this matter is not to rely on personal opinions but rather on the clear and undeniable applicable rules of grammar.

Again, best wishes to all,

Doc.

DocRushing (talk) 06:15, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• Chicago leans towards downcasing, although it acknowledges that usage varies widely. The modern style is the federal government, for example. How do you resolve the issue of both navies are purchasing the new vessels (e.g., the British and US navies)? Tony (talk) 12:07, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Tony:

I agree with the general tendency of the Chicago MoS toward downcasing, because I heartily agree that too many people in the US, while writing English, tend to use too many uppercase initial letters.

The overuse of capital initials results from a widespread difficulty in recognizing which words are proper nouns or adjectives, and which are common ones.

Yes, I too tend to downcase – but only in instances where particular nouns or adjectives do not function as proper ones.

Let's look at your examples:

The federal government (or a state government, county government, or city government) is absolutely correct, not only in a modern style but in a traditional one as well – because government is a common noun, and federal, state, county, and city in that context are common adjectives.

Further, strictly speaking, US government, with a lowercase g, also is correct – because there is no specific agency, organization, or institution bearing the official title of "US Government" or "United States Government".

Now the navies:  Both navies and the British and US navies are also both correct – because in both instances navies does not refer to either of the two specific navies in question.

On the other hand, however, if we write "both the Royal Navy and the US Navy", then in each instance Navy refers to a specific navy.

Consider these parallels:

I address my maternal parent as "Mother", because she is my mother; further, there are many other mothers who live on the same street.  [In these three instances only Mother as a name for a specific person is a proper noun, so only it gets a capital M; each of the other two is a common noun, so it does not get a capital M.]

One of my friends, Lieutenant Commander W.T. Door, is the executive officer of a submarine; he is a lieutenant commander in the US Navy; the welcome-aboard brochure identifies him as "LCdr. W.T. Door, USN, Executive Officer.  [In this first reference to my friend, his rank functions, along with his name, as a part of a proper-noun phrase and thus gets a cap L and a cap C, but the rank otherwise (as a lieutenant commander in the Navy) is merely a common-noun phrase and thus gets lowercase initials; likewise the term executive officer is a common-noun phrase unless it becomes directly tied to a specific person who occupies that position (identified by an official title).]

Well, I genuinely and sincerely hope that that helps.

Incidentally, most of my words above closely resemble the classroom discussions which took place while I was in the fourth grade (1949-50), when my schoolmates and I learned about capitalization.

I find it sad that nowadays so many of the teachers and many of the schools just no longer teach the fundamentals as well as in past years.

Before I retired from education (as a professor of business, including business communication), every year every incoming class of new students was in general slightly less well prepared than the one in the previous year.

Now, in my retirement, I serve as a volunteer instructor in a free GED course (which I created) in a community-service ministry at my church in a downtown location.

In that setting I repeatedly feel amazed and dismayed about the poor preparation of my students there; for example, most of them have great difficulty with the multiplication tables, which my peers and I learned in the third grade.

Oh, well; we try hard to do as well as we can with what we have.

If you have another question, please ask.

I'll gladly lend a hand.

Best wishes,

Doc.

DocRushing (talk) 18:38, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I think that when referring to a particular navy, such as by shortening "the United States Navy" to "the Navy", then "Navy" should be capitalized. --Pine^✉ 20:49, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Pine, DocRushing, CumbiaDude, Kchinger and others: Navy should be capitalized when it's shorthand for the U.S. Navy, like in the USS Iowa turret explosion article. I've never (in over 50 years) seen it not capitalized in similar situations and there's no reason to not capitalize it now. If this is really an American usage vs. British usage type of thing, then we'll go with the American usage when it involves the U.S. Navy—capitalize Navy. --108.45.72.196 (talk) 03:54, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

• For those who believe navy should always be capitalized when referring to a specific navy, I'd like to understand this better. How does this apply for university, museum or similar words for institutions? Also, are you thinking that you are following the Wikipedia MoS by capitalizing navy, or are you thinking that the MoS should be changed? Thanks, SchreiberBike (talk) 04:34, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

• In general when shortening a proper name I think the shortened version should be capitalized, such as is commonly done in the articles Royal Marines which in all but one case shortens the full name to "the Marines". But you're right in pointing out that Wikipedia is inconsistent in practice. For example, we have the article Harvard University in which the subject's name is usually, not always, shortened to "the university". I've also seen that different FAs seem to have different ways of capitalizing the names of species, for example the featured article King Island Emu capitalizes every word in the English version of the species' name and shortens the name to "the Emu", but the featured article Ramaria botrytis uses lower case when it says that a common name for the species is "pink-tipped coral mushroom" and shortens the name to "the fungus". So capitalization generally appears to be inconsistent even in featured content. I think there was an RFC about capitalization somewhere, maybe someone can find it. I think generally that shortened versions of proper names should be capitalized. I'm indifferent about whether an English spelling of a species' name should be capitalized, but if it's capitalized then the shortened version should also be capitalized. --Pine^✉ 06:45, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

• Excellent point made by Kwami about the difference between proper names and proper nouns. On Pine's example of "the Marines", after "the Royal Marines" has already been cited in a text—the Oxford style guide, Hart's New Rules, is equivocal on this point. Tony (talk) 07:51, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

US-centric AP style

The AP Style Guide says "Capitalize when referring to U.S. forces: the U.S. Navy, the Navy, Navy policy. ... Lowercase when referring to the naval forces of other nations: the British navy. This approach has been adopted for consistency, because many foreign nations do not use navy as the proper name." Consistency? Maybe WP can be more consistent by treating the US the same as "foreign" nations. Dicklyon (talk) 02:50, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand the insistence on the "one size fits all" approach. The AP Style Guide recognizes that in the USA, we capitalize the names of the branches of our Armed Services, and that other English speaking countries don't capitalize theirs. Is it helpful if we think of it as a spelling variation? We Yanks have our Navy and our humor; everyone else has their navy and their humour. Wikipedia allows this sort of regional variation—it's a form of tolerance. --108.45.72.196 (talk) 04:39, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Dicky, after we successfully uncapitalize the US Navy, since the capital "N" is "unnecessary", isn't the next step to start getting rid of all those unnecessary u's in British words like humour and neighbour, and those silly esses in words like civilise when we all know they should be zeds. I mean, English should be the same the world over, right? I mean, we're all worshippers of the god Consistency here, right? --108.45.72.196 (talk) 16:57, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't see this as a spelling variation so much as a rule of thumb used by the AP Style Guide to make life easier for copy editors. As the Guide says, it is a simplification of the rule about capitalizing proper names. When giving advice to American journalists writing for American publications aimed almost exclusively at American readers, it makes sense to treat "the Navy" as a proper name standing in for "the United States Navy". In publications aimed exclusively at a British readership, it would make similar sense to treat "the Navy" as standing in for "the Royal Navy" (in the same way as "the Queen" is used for the current British monarch). On the other hand, I would expect to see "The American navy has more aircraft carriers than the British and French navies together", since it is not likely that "the American navy" is being used as a proper name in this context. If the writers of the AP Style Guide want to oversimplify and recommend "the American Navy" (in publications aimed at American readers), that is their business. --Boson (talk) 17:18, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Capitalization of world rankings in tennis player pages

hi there - I was wondering if anyone knew the official wiki regulations for 'World No.' for world rankings on tennis player pages/whether there is a linked guideline for this specific capitalization? I had a quick browse through en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters and thought, say, World No. 1 or World No. 43 would count as a title? 'World No.' has always seemed to be the style most widely used, and I certainly think it looks better than 'world no.' etc - see this conversation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Fyunck%28click%29#Capitalization_of_world_rankings thanks. Asmazif (talk) 21:00, 4 April 2013 (GMT)

There are guides with things like "Abbreviate and capitalize the word number when followed by a numeral: No. 1." And quite a few books do that, as in "world No. 1 tennis player", with lowercase "world". I think WP style would be to not abbreviate, and just say "world number 1 tennis player". But the tennis folks may disagree. Dicklyon (talk) 06:14, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

This issue is already covered by MOS:NUMBERSIGN and standard capitalization of non-proper nouns. According to MOS:NUMBERSIGN, Wikipedia prefers the "No. 1" usage over "number 1". And, as Dicklyon indicated above but did not explain, "world" should not be capitalized because it is not a proper noun. If the ranking refers to that of a specific organization, for example, the World Tennis Association (WTA), then the organization's name would be properly capitalized as in "WTA No. 1". Hope that helps. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 09:57, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

It says use the word "number", or the abbreviation "No.". It doesn't say to choose one of the other, so I guess we were both wrong about that. Dicklyon (talk) 02:54, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Generic words for institutions

Given the confusion in Navy or navy above and the frequency of errors of capitalization of generic words for institutions in articles, is there a need for more specific direction in the Institutions section of this guideline? I think it needs to be more clear. SchreiberBike (talk) 05:33, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I propose the following changes and additions to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Institutions (deletions are struck out and additions are underlined).

• Full names of institutions (George Brown College) are proper nouns and require capitals.
• Generic words for institutions (university, collegesociety, hospital, high schoolnavy) do not take capitals even when referring to a specific institution:

Thanks, SchreiberBike (talk) 17:42, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Your proposal is in keeping with standard English usage. It is a shame that it needs to be said, but it needs to be said. I like and support it. Paul, in Saudi (talk) 18:40, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Just because you keep saying something doesn't make it true. It's hardly "standard English usage" to not capitalize the armed forces. If the proposed changes are agreed upon, that's fine, but stop acting like your position is the only possible correct one. People have already shown the AP and many other style guides don't agree with you. Just because Chicago agrees doesn't make it "standard English usage" or "a shame that it has to be said". Kchinger (talk) 19:43, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for telling me what I may and may not say. Paul, in Saudi (talk) 23:10, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

The decision between lowercase and uppercase (in the context under discussion here) turns on whether a particular noun is a common noun or a proper noun, not on whether a particular noun is a "full name" or a "generic word".

SchreiberBike, please show us one or more authoritative sources on which you base your proposal, especially with regard to the words "even when referring to a specific institution".

Will someone please explain how, when, and why this discussion and similar ones have begun to use the expression "generic word" instead of "common noun"?

No, the proposal above – especially with the words "even when referring to a specific institution" – does not represent "standard English usage", not even after Paul attached that label to it.

Paul and a few others have undertaken to impose their minority personal preference on the rest of us, and they deride some of our work as "confusion" and "errors".

It's OK for them to follow their own minority alternative style in their own private work, but it's not OK for a small group of crusaders to shove their alternative style down the throats of the remainder of us and to create a rule (in the Wikipedia MoS) which they could then enforce against the world.

Please keep in mind that even the major style books sometimes use decision rules which do not conform to the established grammar rules.  [For example, recall the squirelly argument which the NYT style book uses by which to seek to justify the avoidance or nonuse of the serial (or Oxford or Princeton) comma.]

While you ponder my words, please consider my background:   I've worked in journalism, publishing, and elsewhere in mass communication since 1953.  This year is my 60th anniversary as a wordsmith.  When I speak or write on questions such as the ones here, I do so not as a newcomer or an apprentice but rather as someone with 60 years of experience and expertise.  Even now I continue to work in the professional arena as a writer, editor, rewriter, ghostwriter, and proofreader.

Let's not invent new names or new rules, and let's not brush aside the old names and old rules, which have served us well in the past.

Instead let's concentrate on learning, using, and applying the old names and old rules.

My contemporaries and I began to study and to practice the principles of capitalization, including the ones under discussion here, while we were in the fourth grade.

Many of the comments (and some of the juvenile retorts) on this page and on several other talk pages closely resemble many of the classroom discussions in that grade and the following ones in elementary school.

Our teachers were not only caring and conscientious people but also well informed, well educated, and well trained experts and instructors.

They drilled us, and we practiced, and we learned the material – about capitalization and other stuff too – before we reached high school.

Sadly, the educational system has shortchanged many younger students – to the extent that many of them – including many of the participants at the Wikipedia – have received their diplomas and degrees without having learned much of the material which the schools were supposed to impart to them.

Again:  Let's not invent new names or a new grammar; instead let's learn and use the old grammar and its principles.

Go Navy (with an uppercase N)!

As always, best wishes to all,

Doc.

DocRushing (talk) 23:51, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

I desire no innovation in the grammar of our language. I propose that proper names be set with an initial capital letter and that common nouns be set with a small initial letter. Same as it ever was. There are odd rules for some titles, other odd rules for titles and so on. I would suggest that an encyclopedia is a form of academic writing that would more closely follow an academic style guide than a journalistic one. But, as I said before, if we decide to change the rules of English grammar, please leave me a note on my talk page, and I shall enforce the new rule with the rigor I have applied to the old one. Paul, in Saudi (talk) 02:15, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

• The problem is that it is not clear which words are proper nouns. If it were clear, the discussion above under Navy or navy would have been shorter.

It is clear that words such as university or navy are capitalized when they are used as part of the proper name of an institution such as the University of Kansas or the Indian Navy. It is not clear whether those words are proper nouns when used by themselves to refer to an institution, the full name of which, has been used earlier in the article. The language above is an attempt to make that clear.

I have no great attachment to the wording I proposed, but it was the best I could come up with to clarify the topic. I used the phrase full names of institutions instead of proper noun because in the MoS, it is not clear whether or not generic words for institutions are proper nouns when they refer to a specific institution.

I did check the capitalization of navy, per a 2004 copy of The Associated Press Stylebook because I've got one and because it has been referred to above. It says "Capitalize when referring to U.S. forces: the U.S. Navy, the Navy, Navy policy. Do not use the abbreviation USN. Lowercase when referring to the naval forces of other nations: the British navy. This approach has been adopted for consistency, because many foreign nations do not use navy as the proper name." That may make sense in American journalism, but in an international encyclopedia only capitalizing the United States Navy would seem inappropriate.

Thank you, SchreiberBike (talk) 06:52, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Note they called it a proper name, not a proper noun. "Navy" is a common noun even when capitalized as part of a proper name. — kwami (talk) 07:02, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm in favor of following Chicago here, which they allude to here. Coach Annie is capitalized, the coach is not. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 01:02, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the examples given in the cited source sidestep the main issue, though the text does so less - if one reads it exactly as written. The text says: "It doesn’t matter what the word is: captain, coach, aunt, joker, brain. If it’s used in place of a name, cap it." However the examples do not include what are sometimes called weak proper names, i.e. one that are capitalized but, in prose, are preceded by a definite article (usually not capitalized). Examples of this are "the City of London" and "the Tower of London". When the shortened form is used in place of the long name it is (as the cited source says) capitalized regardless. Thus you might "languish in the Tower", "work in the City", "have tea with the Queen", or - arguably - "sign a contract with the Navy". On the other hand, you might write that "the White Tower is the oldest tower in the Tower of London complex", or that London is "the city with a larger French population than Strasbourg". --Boson (talk) 20:21, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

An excellent contribution, Boson! There is also a matter of context that sometimes obtrudes. In a school magazine, it's common to see "the School" mentioned, likewise "the Navy" or "the University" in other institutional proprietary publications; and no-one should challenge such usage therein. However, such capitalisation is rarely justifiable in a non-proprietary (general-readership) publication such as Wikipedia. Personally, in such matters, I have always slavishly adhered to the old Oxford Authors' and Printers' Dictionary, and now the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors. Bjenks (talk) 06:15, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Caps "Items that require initial lower case" (partially) scrap or edit?

I started (and almost finished) editing all the appearances of "k.d. lang" to proper English "K.D. Lang", before I actually realised it has bounced back and forth (wrongly, IMO) between the two uses several times before on WP. Huff!
(please see this MOS:CAPS archive search result ([4]), and the page's talk page ([5]) — both give references to previous goings-on and discussions with some of it irrational, ill conceived, or plainly not considering wider implications across the site).
I'm not going to repeat the pros and cons, but I thought one conclusion would be to scrap the ambiguity that is the rule below in favour of something else a bit simpler ([6]):

"Some individuals do not want their personal names capitalized. In such cases, Wikipedia articles may use lower case variants of personal names if they have regular and established use in reliable third-party sources (for example, k.d. lang). When such a name is the first word in a sentence, the rule for initial letters in sentences and list items should take precedence, and the first letter of the personal name should be capitalized regardless of personal preference."

Really, while she's entitled to write her name any way she wants, she's the one who is ultimately choosing to stylise her name for reason's only guessed at by anyone else, but WP need not repeat such stylisation for the sake of less site clutter on WP pages, and clarity of understanding by the reader. In all reality, this type of thing is usually being done for marketing reasons, and is essentially a typographic choice, as much as any other artist or consumer brand makes – i.e. fluff, inconsequential, unimportant to the integrity of the person or product. However, the reader may want to know, so something should be said on the matter on the page, but this could be done in a much simpler manner, similar to how we deal with other things, (e.g. Mac Mini comes to mind, read on).

Why not scrap that entirely, and instead just stick to the general style guide for capitalisation of people's names (thus keeping the article under correct WP style guide normalised English cap usage, as K.D. Lang), and instead just add a comment in the lede of the article as we do for products like the Mac Mini previously mentioned. The words 'often stylised as k.d. lang' (in the section below) clarify the issue enough, perhaps with a comment in the article about it if needing further explanation, which would cut down on the editing back and forth (not stop it entirely, but certainly cut down on these marginal cases):

Kathryn Dawn Lang, OC (born November 2, 1961), known by her stage name K.D. Lang, often stylised as k.d. lang, is a Canadian pop and country singer-songwriter and occasional actress.

This kills a few issues in one go:

• Firstly, it stops editors from endlessly switching pages back and forth (as mentioned above).
• Secondly, it means we can get rid of the confusing mid-text issue of using lower case for the second name, which doesn't make sense when every other main noun in WP would have a capital on them, e.g. "...and then lang recorded more..." better follows the main cap style guide as "...and then Lang recorded more...", and is certainly easier on the eye when reading.
• Thirdly, this would also be beneficial when naming other family members in the same article page, to avoid endless confusion, e.g. "...lang's mother doreen lang was more..." (would that be right or should the mother be cap'd? — even after reading ALL the current pages twice I was left completely unsure of family member naming in such articles?!), would just be the normalised "...Lang's mother Doreen Lang was more..." ending the confusion in editing and reading.
• Fourthly, all the subpages that refer to the person, either in the article title or mid-text (e.g. albums, singles, mentions on countless other article pages) also then don't have to incur the lower case issues that confuse the reader's eye, e.g. "...in London, lang and Orbison recorded..." looks unclear and wrong to the reader (and is likely to get a quick edit on repeatedly!), so instead would be "...in London, Lang and Orbison recorded..." by just following the general cap rules we all generally understand.
• Fifthly, as I said before, this really is a form of marketing, either commercially or socially, in the person's public life. One can rest assured that in the rest of the person's private life, they do not get to use lower case on everything else (passports, official docs, etc.), so why does WP have to intolerably follow some weird naming scheme for the person concerned, without being able to follow our own natural language style, for reasons of page clarity to our readers.
  

Overall, IMO having one or a few individuals across all the hundreds of thousands of people named on site with a rule all of their own by having lower case every time their name appears on the site (rather than just the lede on their main page, with perhaps a comment in the article if explanation is needed), seems entirely unnecessary to the WP reader, and stylistically for WP, is not needed to understand the text on site. Thoughts please? --Jimthing (talk) 07:24, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

To address your five issues:

• 1. That's simply not true. Having a clear rule doesn't stop people from breaking it. If it did, it would have prevented you from making the changes you have.
• 2. That's subjective. I don't think it's any easier on the eye.
• 3. I don't see any confusion in saying "k.d. lang's mother Doreen Lang".
• 4. I don't see a problem here. It doesn't confuse my eyes.
• 5. How is danah boyd's name an instance of marketing? But so what if marketing is involved? We write iPad and eBay, right? -- Irn (talk) 00:27, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

In response:

• 1. To clarify. As these people's names would follow proper English noun usage, there'd be less instance of users switching to the lowercase in every appearance of the name all over pages.
• 2. It's not subjective, it's objective. If WP is following natural English proper noun usage, then most users are going to find this easier to understand in a visual sense, when appearing on something as formal as an encyclopedic page.
• 3. It is confusing, as the first instance is not following proper En usage, while the second one then is.
• 4. But the rest of the site does not follow such page naming, so it does for the majority of users, as they are not going to understand the complete opposite to convention stylisation change all of a sudden.
• 5. Danah Boyd is marketing herself as much as anyone else is in their life & career. Marketing/selling oneself/attention seeking/political reasoning/et al — WP should not have to change it's whole style guide to fit-in with any such reasoning. (eBay and iPad operate are under a different rule, using the second letter for the capitalisation they still follow WP capitalisation rules — this is why we have the page called "Mac Mini" and not "Mac mini".) Being an encyclopedia, not a product/politic entity/or suchlike, we should be striving for authority of style, not kowtowing to any and all funky casing styles for main article page names and then repeated endlessly throughout articles. As I said, the lede can cover this quite nicely and succinctly, with or without the addition of some further comment in the article itself if needed. Jimthing (talk) 23:25, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

• 1 The switching to lower-case isn't the problem; the switching is. Your proposed change doesn't help this.
• 2 Whether one finds it easier on the eyes is an opinion; there's no objective truth about what's easier on the eye. Further, can you prove to me that "most users" think it's easier on the eye?
• 3 It confuses you; I am not confused by it. Why do you think your experience is universal and not mine?
• 4 Actually, this is not about page naming, but use in all article space. So the rest of the site should use the lower-case as well.
• 5 So capitalizing the second letter makes it okay? If her name were dAnah bOyd, you'd be okay with that? Additionally, following your logic, "Lady Gaga" is mere marketing and we should always refer to her as "Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta".

-- Irn (talk) 23:26, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

• As I have already said once on this page, the article name space belongs to WP, not to the subject matter. I would love to see all article name spaces rendered in the same manner and fixed technically rather than in the style typed by the editor (the article should still relate any stylisation). I favor upper and lowercase capitals. I have been shot down before, but I still have not seen a good reason why this shouldn't work.--Richhoncho (talk) 02:04, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

"the article name space belongs to WP, not to the subject matter", absolutely, WP owns the namespace on here not the article's subject; hence my idea. "I favor upper and lowercase capitals", mmm, not sure what you mean exactly. Presumably you're advocating something like small caps? So we'd render to "K.D. Lᴀɴɢ" or "Dᴀɴᴀʜ Bᴏʏᴅ" for the page title &/or text on pages. I think that's an entirely separate discussion to be honest. Jimthing (talk) 23:25, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Support you attempt to rationalize case along the lines suggested by MOS:CAPS and MOS:TM. K. D. Lang has registered the trademark "k.d. lang", but we don't have to use that as the title of the article about her, since her actually name is also not unusual in sources. Probably the same with Boyd. Dicklyon (talk) 03:04, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I object to both the change you have proposed and the way you are trying to ram this down our throats.

I think that your viewpoint is valid and I think that standardization is a good goal. But as we've already discussed many times in many different venues, this is a relatively minor issue for us but a huge issue for the people whom we discussing so it's a minor issue for us to extend to them the courtesy of honoring how they self identify. It's also quite important to many people that using lower case names is often in line with what reliable sources use, an argument that is very similar to WP:COMMON.

The way in which you are going about this proposed change is entirely wrong and reprehensible. Not only do you need to revert your MOS- and consensus-breaking edits, you also need to stop edit-warring to enforce them and you need to stop using this discussion as an excuse for edit-warring. ElKevbo (talk) 14:55, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Unofficial movements, ideologies or philosophies within religions

The guideline "Unofficial movements, ideologies or philosophies within religions are generally not capitalized unless derived from a proper name" does not work in many cases. The example given of "Catholic" is not derived from a proper name (it is derived from the Latin word for universal). Protestantism, Presbyterianism, Reformed, Orthodox Christianity, Hesychasm, and Methodism are other words almost always capitalized which are not derived from proper nouns. The examples given of evangelicalism and fundamentalism are often capitalized in reliable sources. It seems to me that the best advice is to use the capitalization dominant in reliable sources. --JFH (talk) 16:39, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

In the context implied here all the quoted names – with the sole exception of hesychasm – did indeed derive from proper nouns – from the names of the corresponding movements or denominations.

Is user Hutson willing to try to persuade us that the word Christianity did not derive from the proper noun Christ?

The word catholic (with a lowercase c) refers to the church universal; the word Catholic (with an uppercase C) refers to the Roman Catholic Church or one or more of the other churches which share or follow the Catholic tradition.

The words Catholic (when referring to a Catholic church), Protestantism, Presbyterianism, Reformed (when referring to one or more of the denominations which emerged from the Calvinist tradition), Orthodox Christianity, and Methodism – every one of them – is properly capitalized – because each of them is a proper noun derived from a proper noun – not merely because one or more other writers, editors, typists, or typesetters have capitalized it.

[Hesychasm is not a movement or denomination but rather a school of thought about the mode or manner of personal prayer.]

Best wishes to all,

Doc.

DocRushing (talk) 20:21, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree that Christianity works based on the rule given, hence I never mentioned it. Please explain what you mean regarding the examples I mentioned. Saying they are derived from the names of the movements they describe, and are hence proper nouns, is circular. They are the names of these movements. What makes these movements different from evangelicalism and fundamentalism? --JFH (talk) 20:35, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

This is really bothering me so I will ask a specific question in hope that I am more clear and receive a response. Usually we use "presbyterian" (lowercase) to refer to church government by representative assemblies (see Presbyterian polity) and "Presbyterianism" (capitalized) to refer to the movement of Scottish, English, and Irish Reformed churches with presbyterian government and their derivatives (see the first para of this Catholic Encyclopedia article). Presbyterianism in the second sense is an unofficial movement with many churches, and, especially at the beginning, unofficial movements within established churches. It is not derived from a proper noun, it is derived from "presbyterian" in the first sense which is derived from a Greek word. It is not derived from the name of any particular Presbyterian church, because there was at least one Presbyterian church (the Church of Scotland) before there was a church with "Presbyterian" in the name. So, should we stop capitalizing "Presbyterianism" and "Presbyterian" when we are referring to something that is part of the movement rather than part of a particular Presbyterian church? --JFH (talk) 18:01, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Ellipses and elided words

The guideline says to capitalize the first and last words of a title. But what if the title begins or ends with an ellipsis? There's a discussion at Talk:Sykes and A... over whether the "A" should be capitalized because it's the last word, or lowercase because the ellipsis elides the real last word. Powers ^T 12:40, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

RfC: Prepositions in composition titles

I'm sick of RMs requesting we capitalize four-letter prepositions just because—oh, say, everyone else does. Why have a MOS if we're going to ignore it in favor of popularity contests? The five-letter rule is an aberration that makes us look silly. I'm officially requesting we change "containing four letters or fewer" to "containing three letters or fewer" on this page, at WP:NCCAPS, and in other relevant places. Let's put this to rest. --BDD (talk) 21:22, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand the point of this RfC. It does not seem to be worded neutrally or clearly. How is "containing three letters or fewer" better than "containing four letters or fewer"? If this is more in line with more style guides, then show us that. My impression is the opposite. And what is it that you expect to put to rest? Dicklyon (talk) 04:15, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

I expect to put to rest petty RMs such as the one regarding Star Trek Into Darkness and the current one at Talk:A Lot like Love. I think when our style differs from those used by other sources, we look eccentric at best, unprofessional at worst. Though it occurs to me we may simply be better off killing the preposition rule off altogether and following capitalization used in reliable sources (then again, that veers us into WP:SSF territory). --BDD (talk) 18:38, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

As we've established before, the real world seems to prefer four letters or fewer in various style guides. The way to put it to rest is to follow these style guides and enforce our own MoS. --Rob Sinden (talk) 08:00, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

The change from 4 to 3 is pointless and will not make us look any less (or more) silly. If you want a change, we could change to an explicit list of which prepositions we capitalize and which we don't, and then we can argue over each preposition's inclusion or exclusion from those lists. But this RFC is not going to put anything to rest. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:15, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

• I'd be more inclined to believe these claims that this RfC won't solve anything if someone could point me to RMs where capitalization of a three-letter word is in dispute. --BDD (talk) 16:23, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

  http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Don%27t_Stop_%27Til_You_Get_Enough&diff=522385857&oldid=488332890 -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:43, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

  Missing from that example: dispute. --BDD (talk) 18:38, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

  The requested title capitalizes a three-letter preposition, contrary to your "put this to rest" rule. Missing from this RFC: benefit to the encyclopedia. As I said, the better approach would be to specify which three-letter prepositions to capitalize (per? via? til?), which four-letter prepositions to capitalize (like? into?), and which not to. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:23, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

  It's an oddball case that we should fix; dispute is hopefully unlikely, but it's clear that editors need guidance and that there's nothing uniquely special about 4 except that it is what most style guides use. Dicklyon (talk) 21:03, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

  The oddball case was requested to be moved to the "unfixed" version per common usage (per the edit summary in the diff I linked); dispute is not all that unlikely. Other oddballs can be found[7] -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:12, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

  Also, in the case of 'til, as it's an abbrevation of the 5-letter until, it could be confusing as to whether the 4-letter rule applies to it. --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:17, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

  Right, more confusion. 'til is a contraction of until. til (no apostrophe) is a three-letter preposition in some titles, not an abbreviation or contraction (like twixt or tween are not abbreviations or contractions of betwixt or between, just shorter words meaning the same thing). And till is a four-letter variant of the five-letter until. You can also check "per" and "via", short contractions that are often capitalized in composition titles. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:08, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

  The other issue of course is that if we were to change to three, we will have the opposite situation, where other sources have four with a lowercase. --Rob Sinden (talk) 17:52, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. And there are many more like that, in my impression. Dicklyon (talk) 21:03, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

@BDD: The proposal is to change how we capitalize four-letter words, so I'm not sure why you're asking for evidence of disputes with three-letter words. The guideline for three-letter prepositions won't be affected by this RfC in any way, will it? By my experience, uncapitalizing certain four-letter prepositions like "from" and "with" tends to be uncontroversial, while others such as "like" or "unto" are more likely to be challenged. No doubt if the guideline was to capitalize there would continue to be proposals to uncapitalize, so I don't see how the proposal would put an end to the disputes really. Jafeluv (talk) 21:12, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

• The main consideration should be that the MOS should only be consulted in cases where we don't have clear guidance from usage in reliable sources. --B2C 22:36, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

  I disagree that that needs to be the main consideration for prepositions in composition titles any more than it needs to be the main consideration for allcaps in trademarks. WP can has its own style without violating RS. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:48, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

• The four letter rule should be softened or refined. Not all four letter words are the same. Not all usages of the same word is the same. Title case, which is preferred in creative titles, is not well defined. There is creative nuance in the capitalisation of certain words in title case that cannot be captured by counting characters. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:53, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

• Frustrating is the need to find a specific MOS rule to fix something that just immediately looks wrong. Such as the two He's_Just_Not_That_into_You articles. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:04, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

But just because it "looks wrong" to you, doesn't mean it is wrong, or that it would look wrong to someone else. That's just subjective. --Rob Sinden (talk) 07:51, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Does it not "look wrong" to you? After 6 months, you seem to be still thinking about whether its a phasal verb [8]. If everyone agrees that it looks wrong, is that still subjective? What is so wrong about subjective? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:55, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I thought it was familiar! In that case, actually "to be into" could be a phrasal verb, and therefore it would be wrong, and not subject to these rules anyway! --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:16, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes. I found it when looking for other proper name titles containing "into". My point is that the rules are too hard, in part to follow, in part to accept as non-arbitrary. I managed to work out what a preposition is, but still have trouble with phrasal verbs. I think in this case a rules compliant case can be made to capitalise "into", though I am sure that I couldn't explain it to my mother. Star Trek Into Darkness I can't explain using the rules. I think that, unless someone can refine the rules, they should be softened, allowing/encouraging subjective decision making until better rules are written. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:18, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's complicated and not something easily understood - took me a while too! However, if I'm right, capitalising "into" in He's Just Not That into You would be per the current rules, if "to be into" is a phrasal verb. Changing our guideline (to three, four or five letters) would not make a difference in this case, and wouldn't make the rules easier to understand. The problem is that it is the rules of the language that are complicated in the first place. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:25, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Dot the I

Are we satisfied that the closing admin made the right decision on this move review? I don't think I am... --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:49, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

So we need a Wikipedia:Move review review now? :P Jafeluv (talk) 08:03, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

We need something - neither closing admin went with consensus (or policy and guidelines)... --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:33, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

I think a move review close should be reveiwable at move review. Alternatively, you could open an RfC on the close. I don't recommend either though, instead recommending a fresh RM, with a very careful statement that addresses all of the points made in opposition to the move in the previous RM. If you took the review close to formal review, I expect to see some criticism of engagin process with out a meaningful desired outcome (I know you see it otherwise). My input would be that the issue boils down to no consensus on whether the written policy applies to unusual cases. (I commented in the Move Review, but had not seen the RM while it was in progress). --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:52, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Repeatedly starting new discussions until they result in the answer you're looking for is a horrendously bad idea. Please don't encourage it. Powers ^T 01:14, 15 June 2013 (UTC)