Talk:2017 Speaker of the United States House of Representatives election

Requested move 13 March 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Withdrawing request to make way for new requests in light of discovering relevant policy here. BurgeoningContracting 2017 Speaker of the United States House of Representatives election → 2017 speaker of the United States House of Representatives election – Proposed title already exists, according to server. Proper capitiliazation, as it describes the election for the job. See speaker of the United States House of Representatives BurgeoningContracting 20:15, 13 March 2024 (UTC) This is a contested technical request (permalink). BurgeoningContracting 22:22, 13 March 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. queen of 🖤 (they/them; chat) 20:00, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support - This would also make it consistent with every other article with a similar title. I see little controversy here. aaronneallucas (talk) 03:27, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

  The other ones used "Speaker" until the requester moved them a couple days ago. SilverLocust 💬 22:49, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

• Opposed - Goes against WP:NCCAPS as does most/all of the other recent moves. (@BurgeoningContracting: Is there a specific reason you believe this is proper capitalization?) --Super Goku V (talk) 08:05, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you for asking. I do not see which part of NCCAPS this violates. The speaker isn't a proper name. Jobs like "speaker" or "president" are not capitalized. There are no other provisions I am aware of for capitalizing "speaker" as it exists in the article's title. If there are, I would be interested in reading and discussing those in order to ensure the titles are correct. BurgeoningContracting 19:38, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

  My understanding was that Wikipedia followed the rule to capitalize the first letter of the first word in an article, unless intentionally lowercase like with eBay and iPhone. Given that the page says Multiword articles: [...] 1993 Russian constitutional crisis in the examples, I was under the impression that it was true. --Super Goku V (talk) 02:44, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

  In "1993 Russian constitutional crisis", the first "word" is "1993". The second word is "Russian". "Russian" is capitalized for a different reason – because it is derived from the proper name of a geopolitical country/place or ethnic group. Words like "Russian", "American", "Pakistani", "Antarctic", "Kurdish", "Apache", "Athabaskan", "Inuit" and "Zulu" are always capitalized, regardless of where they appear in an article title or article body. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 02:51, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

  Gotcha, looks like I was mistaken then. Sorry for the trouble. --Super Goku V (talk) 18:47, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

• Weak oppose: Per MOS:JOBTITLES, this looks like a case of "a formal title for a specific entity (or conventional translation thereof) [that] is addressed as a title or position in and of itself, is not plural, is not preceded by a modifier (including a definite or indefinite article), and is not a reworded description". —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 01:12, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you for bringing this up. After reading through the guideline, I don't see how the title of the speaker is addressed in such way that it meets the requirement of being adressed in and of itself, as the article and its name is addressing the election rather than the title. BurgeoningContracting 02:20, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

  I think the title is describing an election for a specific unique position, and "Speaker of the United States House of Representatives" is the unmodified formal title for the specific position for which the election was held (and that formal title is not plural and is not preceded by an article like "a" or "the"). We don't capitalize "presidential" in the title of "2020 United States presidential election" because that is not using the formal title of the position, but if the title was 2020 election for President of the United States, I think we would. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 02:38, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

  What is the definition of modifier here? A few definitions I came accross:

  • "Modifiers are words that modify their sentences’ meanings by adding details and clarifying facts or by differentiating between people, events, or objects."
  • "Modifiers are words, phrases, and clauses that affect and often enhance the meaning of a sentence."

  I saw 2017 as being the modifier in that it narrows down when this election for the job was since "2017" narrows down and defines what exactly this was, exactly. BurgeoningContracting 22:11, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  I think a modifier here means some word(s) that modify the identification of the position (like "37th" in "37th president of the United States" or "former" in "former prime minister of the United Kingdom" or "a" in "a king of France" or "the" in "the president of the United States"). Here I believe the "2017" is a modifier of "election", not a modifier of the title of the position. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 22:41, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

  That was one argument, but I would maintain the earlier position the article's title describes an election as a job (common noun) rather than that for the title, the latter being typically used as denoted in the guidline, often to clarify a person was elected. It serves as a descriptor of the central theme, the election for a speaker.

  As for the use of "presidential," "speaker" is a describes the central theme, the election, as does presidential. It is for the election for the position of speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Treating 'speaker' as if it were a common noun would be more in line with "presidential" and others like "gubernatorial" where we don't use the titles, rather what job they are being elected to. BurgeoningContracting 02:53, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  I do see your point and perhaps it's arguable, but I'll stick with my interpretation of the guideline. If it was "speakership" instead of "speaker", I think that would be more analogous to "presidential" and should not be capitalized. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 03:36, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  Fair enough. And, well, this can become a whole other argument itself when you account for the fact that no election pages, at least I don't think, include the role the person is elected to in like "2017 Speaker of the United States House of Representatives election" or any other of the year-specific speakership elections.

  This I just discovered looking at WP:NCGAL: "For individual elections and referendums, use the format '[date] [country name or adjectival form] [type] election/referendum'"

  The adjective itself for speaker is "speakership" so we would probably see "2017 United States House of Representatives speakership election if we follow this guideline." BurgeoningContracting 15:02, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  That title seems OK to me. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 17:23, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

  Now that I have looked through other elections like Liberal Party leadership election (as in the elections for leader), I would be in support of an NCGAL-compliant title assuming it applies here, meaning "[year] United States House of Representatives speakership election" would be a better choice by that policy.

  I don't know how to cancel this and make an RM for all of the speakership elections though. BurgeoningContracting 02:46, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

  Scrap, that @BarrelProof, I have figured it out and have filed an all-encompassing RM. BurgeoningContracting 05:27, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose, sometimes (well, often), Wikipedia goes overboard in lowercasing proper names. Speaker of the House is a proper name. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:47, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. As BarrelProof noted, this title is using the name of the i Iliad office as a proper noun, as is correct. oknazevad (talk) 08:24, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
• This has run for 15 days with one relisting, hasn't gone the nominators way, so I would think they can withdraw themselves but not negate the nomination. Please close this one as Keep, thanks....and WP:NCELECT is about elections to public offices, not in-house offices and selections. Randy Kryn (talk) 09:11, 29 March 2024 (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.

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:October 2023 speaker of the United States House of Representatives election which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 13:23, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

It should not affect this page, which has just gone through a 16 day RM with a clear consensus not to rename. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:08, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

That may be your opinion, and that's fine, but the new RM does propose to rename this page (and the other RM was withdrawn, not closed with any suggestion of a moratorium). I don't want people to get the impression from your comment that the new RM does not affect this page. It does. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 15:21, 29 March 2024 (UTC)