Talk:Houston riot of 1917

Article name

From the article: "More commonly known as the Camp Logan Riots". If this is true, shouldn't the article name reflect that? —Mrwojo (talk) 20:40, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Precipitating cause

while I believe that the IP is right to a certain extent, this section is, what I believe, not neutral. Having read the NCAA piece verses the account written on a few other references don't exactly jibe. The NCAA piece does need to stay in place as a reference, but needs to be reworded. --Hourick (talk) 16:48, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I reworded it slightly to be more neutral but the IP keeps removing the content. I'm not adverse to changing it wholesale if reliable sources are found. Falcon8765 (talk) 00:43, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Until another proper/neutral source can be found, this is the best that can be done. So where do we go from here? Semi-protect? --Hourick (talk) 04:02, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

POV

"The court contained an admirable geographic balance between northerners, southerners and westerners." 184.36.174.140 (talk) 16:31, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree, language like that is inherently POV regardless of facts. I also note no citation for the claim. I deleted "admirable" and added a cite tag for now. I'd be inclined to delete the whole sentence but I think it will improve the article better to find citation in order to keep it if such sources can be found. Rifter0x0000 (talk) 11:29, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

What should this article be called?

Title? Of course it SHOULD be called the Houston Massacre of 1917. This was a racially motivated massacre of white people by black males dressed in US military uniforms. All the victims - 16 of them- were ambushed. No where in Wikipedia's article is "racially motivated" mentioned, or the word "massacre". No surprise. Blacks always get a pass. As for "Jim Crow" laws...more guilt tripping. Plessy v. Ferg. was the law of the land. Wiki of course is well aware of this. White males did NOT owe blacks race-nullification! That was forced on white America with the Civil Rights Act 1964. This incident occurred in 1917. Attitudes were different. Racial separation had always existed. No one...No one prevented blacks from building towns, cities, industries, urban housing...and excluding white people where and whenever they chose to do so. Blacks were not victims because they were living separate from whites! No different than American Indian tribes living separate. No one is guilt tripping Indians for refusing to amalgamate. Human nature has always separated males into groups. And those groups were always based on race, language, religion. The structure of American society up until 1964 was completely consistent with all of human history!. So why this constant guilt tripping of white people? Clearly it is part of Wiki's policy - and is only reserved for white people. This was a terrible, horrific massacre of innocent people. How dare Wiki imply in any way these murderous, racist cowards are the victims...or imply they had just cause to level their rifles at innocent, unarmed civilians and gun them down simply and solely because of their race. Wiki needs to start describing historical events without an agenda!

Haynes entitled his 1973 paper "The Houston Mutiny and Riot of 1917". But his 1976 book A Night of Violence: The Houston Riot of 1917 was more popular and widely cited. The 1972 masters thesis "The Houston Riot of 1917" is also widely cited.

Look at these n-grams. It's clear that uses of "Houston Mutiny of 1917" shot up as the 1972 thesis and 1976 book came to be widely cited, and account for the majority of uses of caps in "Houston Riot". That doesn't mean that's what people are using in sentences, though.

Looking in sentences, if you including the "of 1917", you don't find a lot. In Google book search, I find these few in sentences after reviewing every book hit:

• 6 "Houston Riot of 1917"
• 3 "Houston riot of 1917"
• 7 "Houston race riot of 1917"

(caps as shown), and that's all (no capped "Houston Race Riot of 1917" even though that's a common error in citing Haynes's book). Many more books have "Houston riot" in sentences, of course.

The (1917) parenthetical is odd for a WP title, as no disambiguator is needed and no source does it that way. Houston riot would probably be clear enough, and certainly fits WP:UCN.

Online sources like this page are cool, but written by the same Haynes, so no new info over his 1976 book.

I see no evidence for an "accepted" or "proper" name for this event. Just a few popular works cited.

What do others find? Dicklyon (talk) 07:10, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I favour "Houston Riot of 1917", as it is both the most common and WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE. I think the year should be included, but not in parenthetical form. "Houston riot" used in sentences is a descriptive usage, which is only used after the initial introduction of the "Houston Riot of 1917" or something similar. It is not suitable for an article title. RGloucester — ☎ 07:16, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

What do you mean by "most common". As I tried to show with data above, it is most common only because of all the citations to works by that title. It is very rare in text (6 books that I could find, compared to 10 lowercase forms with "of 1917" and dozens or hundreds of simpler descriptive references). Dicklyon (talk) 07:21, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

We are determining what to call this article, so descriptive usages used after the event's introduction in text are not useful. People are using "Houston Riot of 1917" in sentences, more so than any of the other options. It also is more concise than the other proposed titles ("race riot"), and more precise than simply "Houston riot", which seems like it may lead to confusion. Especially since the "1917" seems to be part of a proper name, we cannot drop it. I also noticed that "Houston riot" got many false hits, not surprisingly, such as this. RGloucester — ☎ 14:28, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

If you would avoid web search and stick to books you'd have a more clear picture of usage in reliable sources; one can find a web page to illustrate almost anything, but it doesn't contribute much to understanding the pattern of usage in reliable sources. I'm curious why you say "People are using 'Houston Riot of 1917' in sentences, more so than any of the other options." Do you find it in more books than the 6 I found? What other options have you looked at? Dicklyon (talk) 16:33, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

We don't "avoid" web sources. I haven't got time now, but I'll get back to you later. RGloucester — ☎ 17:00, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

For the purpose of collecting usage stats we do very much avoid web sources; that's not to say an individual source is not reliable or wouldn't be used in the article, just that the amount of duplication and the lack of good editorial oversight make the web a bad source for usage. And as a source of "false hits" it's just nonsense to use the web to show that false hits are possible, when I've been looking at books and only counting actual hits. I can post the URLs of all the books I counted above if you like, and you can verify that false hits are not part of the issue here; a complete red herring based on your web search. Dicklyon (talk) 17:15, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

The only 21st century book that has a preview on GBS and includes "Houston riot" is this one. It's title of chapter 22 is "The Houston Riot". I am not able to see further to see how it uses it in text, but this pretty much contradicts that assertion that "Houston Riot of 1917" is the accepted name of the event. If it was "accepted" it would appear in more than 6 books.

It is hard to find all occurrences in a book, in general, and harder without previews, but we can look at what we get in snippets.

It is not uncommon to find it indexed as simply "Houston riot", which contradicts that idea that this short form is only used after the introduction of the full name. See (lowercase), (uppercase).

It is not unusual to find "Houston riot" only once in a book, just that way. See these 7 found in just the first 20 hits in 21st-century books: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]. In that same range (first two pages of hits in GBS for 21st century), I find only 4 books that include "of 1917", and only two of those uses caps. Here's the search: [8]. Not counting the occurrences that are only in citations to the books with that in the title, of course.

Of course your results may vary as you search and count different subsets; GBS hits are not deterministic, so you might even see different things with the same search. But I still can't see why you imagine support either for the Houston Riot of 1917 being most common, or why you think it is the accepted name of the event, as opposed to a description just like Houston race riot of 1917, which also appears in a fair number of 21st century books; see this search if you want to count them up.

Without evidence of an accepted name and consistent capitalization, WP:MILTERMS doesn't apply. It says "The general rule is that wherever a military term is an accepted proper name, as indicated by consistent capitalization in sources, it should be capitalized. Where there is uncertainty as to whether a term is generally accepted, consensus should be reached on the talk page." There is no uncertainty here, is there?

Dicklyon (talk) 17:15, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to defer to you on capitalisation, in this case, though I think there is a good argument for capitalisation. However, I think that the year must be included. RGloucester — ☎ 17:20, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

That's real big of you, but if you would actually state your agreement, and/or say that you've learned something about the technique of using sources to figure out when something has an accepted proper name, it might make it a lot easier to avoid future problems about such things. Dicklyon (talk) 19:11, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I'd rather not see this as win–lose, but a productive discourse in which all are willing to question our assumptions and examine the evidence dispassionately. We should take what RGloucester says in good faith. Dick, it's a lot of work to list these examples descriptively: thank you. Tony (talk) 04:25, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I think that the sources here support capitalisation, but I'm willing to compromise and drop my support for capitalisation in return for maintaing the year, but converting to "of" format. I think that the year is more necessary, so I'd rather bargain for what I think is more important to the integrity of the title. RGloucester — ☎ 04:40, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough; I will propose Houston riot of 1917 (or 1917 Houston riot if you prefer) when I get around to it. Still got a few others going, and it's a lot of work, as Tony notes. Dicklyon (talk) 06:17, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I prefer using "of", as it appears in sources that way the vast majority of the time. RGloucester — ☎ 06:31, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Or in 16 books that I can find, anyway. That's fine. Dicklyon (talk) 06:49, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

• Houston riot of 1917 sounds right. Sources don't consistently capitalise this. Has there been some other Houston riot notable enough for Wikipedia? If not, no need to disambiguate with date. Using parenthetical disambiguation isn't odd on WP at all, but WP:NATURAL says we should avoid it, so Houston riot (1917) seems not to be the best name. From what I can tell, we generally do not ever disambiguate by leading with the disambiguation, so 1917 Houston riot is out.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:08, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Actually, if you scan some categories such as Category:African-American riots in the United States, you'll see that it's not unusual to lead with the date; many types of events are done this way. I don't think of it as disambiguation so much as description, contributing to WP:RECOGNIZABILITY and WP:PRECISION. But I'll stick with the "of", even though the claim that it is "common" is hardly supportable from sources. Dicklyon (talk) 18:14, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I would rename them, then. It doesn't play well with the rest of WP's article titling practices.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:13, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Usage examples from books

In progress... starting with items mentioned already above. Please add any and all references in books to this event that occur in a sentence (or a context that is not a citation to a title, and not a heading or itself that would cause upcasing) so we can get a better idea whether there is a prominent way that this event is referred to.

"Houston race riot of 1917"

1. "The Houston race riot of 1917 deserves special mention here."
2. "...coincided with the Houston race riot of 1917"
3. "...in common with the Houston race riot of 1917"
4. "For example, the Houston race riot of 1917 occurred when..."
5. "...developed into the Houston race riot of 1917."
6. "...developed into the Houston race riot of 1917." (different book, same paragraph)
7. "The Houston race riot of 1917 in which black soldiers..."

"Houston Race Riot of 1917"

(none found)

"Houston riot of 1917"

1. "We begin with the Houston riot of 1917."
2. "Houston riot of 1917" in index (in text, "a riot occurred in Houston, Texas")
3. "Houston riot of 1917" in index (but always just "Houston riot" in text as far as I can see)

"Houston Riot of 1917"

1. "The Houston Riot of 1917, more than any other event,"
2. "commonly known as the Houston Riot of 1917."
3. "The Houston Riot of 1917 occurred on..."
4. "In an era of race riots, the Houston Riot of 1917 stood out..."
5. "The Houston Riot of 1917, after all, was sparked..."
6. "...were significant during the Houston Riot of 1917."

"Houston riot" (without "of 1917")

(just a few from 21st century first 2 pages so far)

1. "The most accruate, comprehensive study of the Houston riot is..."
2. "in the Arkansas, Tulsa, and Houston riot cases"
3. "dated July 25, 1917—about a month before the Houston riot."
4. "Some predicted 'another Houston riot';"
5. "Because of white fears after the Houston riot,"
6. "In the wake of the Houston riot,"
7. "...serving life sentences for the Houston riot."
8. "Houston riot" in index

"Houston Riot" (without "of 1917")

1. "Houston Riot, and" and "Houston Riot (1917)" in index
2. "The Houston Riot led to..."
3. "...the long-obscured events of the 1917 Houston Riot of Black soldiers"

"Houston Mutiny of 1917"

1. [https://books.google.com/books?id=GQlvBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA553&dq=%22houston+mutiny+of%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=QIaMVOifEYTuoASjjoGYAg&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22houston%20mutiny%20of%22&f=false "The Houston Mutiny of 1917 (also referred to as the Houston Riot or the Camp Logan Riot) was ..."
2. "in one of the worst cases, the Houston Mutiny of 1917, ..."
3. "...changed with the news of the Houston Mutiny of August 1917"
4. "...backdrop for the well-known Houston Mutiny of 1917."
5. "...and the Houston Mutiny of 1917 the most savage response"
6. "who was involved in the infamous Houston Mutiny of 1917."

(and this uses it in a mangled version of the Haynes book title, but not in the text)

"Houston Mutiny of August 23, 1917"

1. "...took part in the Houston Mutiny of August 23, 1917—"

Houston mutiny of 1917

1. "and the Houston mutiny of 1917"
2. "participation in the Houston mutiny of 1917."
3. "... that except for the Houston mutiny of 1917,
4. "reason for and aftermath of Houston 'mutiny' of Negro soldiers (August 1917) in" in index

Houston mutiny (no "of")

1. "In the wake of the Houston mutiny, ..."
2. "While the white public chose to view the 'Houston mutiny. as... "
3. "In the wake ofthe Houston mutiny,"
4. "...condemned the Houston mutiny but..."
5. "The Houston mutiny revealed emerging..."
6. "...far less bloody than the Houston mutiny"

(and plenty more)

Houston Mutiny (no "of")

1. "the Houston Mutiny, also known as the Camp Logan riot,"
2. "anger about the treatment of the soldiers charged with participation in the “Houston Mutiny” was"
3. "This was called the Houston Mutiny."
4. "As some had feared, the Houston Mutiny led to a wave of retaliatory ..."

(and plenty more)

Usage in titles

Several books and papers use "The Houston Riot of 1917" and "The Houston Race Riot of 1917" in their titles. Most book hits for these strings are citations of these titles, and thus only distract from the question of how authors refer to these events in text, especially with respect to capitalization. For example:

• dozens or hundreds of books referring to Haynes, A Night of Violence: the Houston Riot of 1917
• more than a dozen citing Haynes as A Night of Violence: the Houston Race Riot of 1917 (different edition? error?)
• dozens of books citing Haynes's earlier article, "The Houston Mutiny and Riot of 1917"
• dozens of books citing Smith, "The Houston Riot of 1917, Revisited"
• dozens of books citing Adams' thesis "The Houston Riot of 1917"
• dozens of books citing Schuler, The Houston Race Riot, 1917

The vast majority of occurrences on things like "Houston Riot of 1917" are seen to be citations; they provide no support for the idea that this is an accepted proper name.

Requested move 14 December 2014

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: consensus to move the pages, except no consensus in this discussion to move Watts Riots at this time, per the discussion below. If a new request is needed for Watts Riots based on the new evidence, please proceed, but I think we're getting to the point where it may be helpful to take a break and come back later. Dekimasuよ! 05:25, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

---

• Houston Riot (1917) → Houston riot of 1917
• Watts Riots → Watts riots
• Hough Riots → Hough riots
• Cicero Race Riot of 1951 → Cicero race riot of 1951
• Detroit Race Riot (1943) → Detroit race riot of 1943
• Detroit Race Riot (1863) → Detroit race riot of 1863

– As the discussion above shows, we have overcome the objection of the editor who reverted the previous downcasing of the Houston riot, and have converged on a better title for it. The other riots are pretty similar in the issues they raise, and in the evidence in sources, so I'm bundling this short list for inclusion here, per the discussion at Talk:Watts Riots#Requested moves and Talk:Watts Riots#Follow up. Evidence can be reviewed at that discussion, and I will work on clarifying and copying it here shortly (and I will ping all thos participants when I get started on that). Of course, feel free to support some and oppose others, with rationales rooted in policy, guidelines, and sources. Dicklyon (talk) 18:26, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish, Labattblueboy, Skookum1, and Ohconfucius: @Blueboar, ErikHaugen, BD2412, Hmains, Arbitrarily0, Neil P. Quinn, and Anglo-Araneophilus: @Jakec, North Shoreman, HughD, Edison, Chris troutman, Cptnono, and Lukeno94: @Dicklyon, Dekimasu, RGloucester, Tony1, Calidum, Red Harvest, and Djembayz: Since you have participated in or closed one or more of the recent riot/massacre/etc. decapitalization discussions, you are being pinged in case you want to be aware of this one; as agreed at the close linked in the move rationale at Talk:Watts Riots. Dicklyon (talk) 03:34, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Data

Others are invited to add data here, too. Dicklyon (talk) 18:30, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Houston

Please see section above: Talk:Houston_Riot_(1917)#Usage_examples_from_books and the discussion above that. If you find any uses in books to add to those enumerated above, please report them here. Dicklyon (talk) 18:39, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Neither Houston riot nor Houston race riot nor Houston mutiny (which is possibly more common) nor any of the other things that this event is called appear uppercase a majority of time in sentences (they do appear uppercase a lot in citations of the titles of others, but that does not affect the question here). The event clearly has no widely accepted proper name, just like most other such events.

Watts

Overwhelming majority lowercase in sources is clear: [9]. Dicklyon (talk) 18:39, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Singular was more common in books until recently, also overwhelmingly lowercase. Dicklyon (talk) 19:57, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Watts Riots in encyclopedias.

I did some more digging to address the "encyclopedic register" concept.

Here are encyclopedias that I can find in Google Book Search that use uppercase "Watts Riots":

• Britannica titles it Watts Riots of 1965 and capitalizes it in the text, too.

And those that use lowercase "Watts riots" in sentences:

• Encyclopedia of American Race Riots
• Encyclopedia of Political Communication.
• MLK encyclopedia
• Race and Racism in the United States: An Encyclopedia of the American Mosaic
• Encyclopedia of African American Society
• Revolts, Protests, Demonstrations, and Rebellions in American History: An Encyclopedia
• Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment
• Encyclopedia of Law Enforcement

Singular versions, from just the first page of 10 GBS hits, show a similar pattern heavily skewed toward lowercase:

Uppercase "Watts Riot" in sentences:

• The Pacific Region: The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Regional Cultures

Lowercase "Watts riot" in sentences:

• Encyclopedia of African American Politics
• Encyclopedia of American Race Riots, Volume 1
• Race and Racism in the United States: An Encyclopedia of the American Mosaic
• Encyclopedia of African American Society
• Encyclopedia of African American History
• Encyclopedia of the Kennedys: The People and Events That Shaped America
• The New Centurions

Other inputs are welcome here. Dicklyon (talk) 19:23, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Hough

Overwhelming majority lowercase in sources is clear: [10]. Dicklyon (talk) 18:41, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Cicero

It's too rare in books to see much in n-grams, but what we do see supports lowercase: [11]. Dicklyon (talk) 18:51, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

A book search for "Cicero Rate Riot" show most capitalized hits are to citations of sources with titles such as:

• Jury Indicts Seven in Cicero Race Riot
• The Camille DeRose Story: The True Story of the Cicero Race Riots

and to headings. E.g. this hit showing caps in the search snippet actually uses lowercase in the text.

In the first page of 10 book hits, one uses uppercase "Cicero Race Riots" in the text, 8 use lowercase, and one only cites a title. That should be enough data to show the lowercase is overwhelmingly more common. The "of 1951" occurs in two of the first 10 (both lowercase). It is a useful and not uncommon part of what the event is called, and I favor keeping it.

In the second page of 10 hits, again only 1 uppercase; 9 lowercase. Dicklyon (talk) 06:34, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Detroit

This is where it gets interesting, since the overwhelming majority of book hits in the search "Detroit Race Riot" are to source titles such as

• The Detroit Race Riot of 1943
• What Caused the Detroit Race Riot?
• The Detroit Race Riot: A Study in Violence
• The Background and Causes of the 1943 Detroit Race Riot
• Detroit Race Riot

Furthermore, almost all the hits are about the 1943 riot. Even adding 1863 to the search finds a lot of discussion where "Detroit race riot" refers to the 1943 one.

So I did a bunch of searching and compiling of individual usages in text, starting with first 2 pages (10 per page) of book hits:

Book search for "Detroit race riot"

uses in text lowercase:

• "in the Detroit race riot of June 1943"
• "The most authoritative reference to the 1943 Detroit race riot is..."
• "...on the theme of the Detroit race riot article..."
• "Following the 1943 Detroit race riot,"
• "...shortly before the Detroit race riot,"
• "and Detroit race riot" (in index)
• "it was the Detroit race riot of 1943 that..."
• "Detroit race riot" (in index)
• "Detroit race riot" (in index)
• "Detroit race riot of 1943"

no uppercase uses in text found in first 20 book hits

more specific search for 1863 "Detroit Race Riot of 1863"

3 uppercase in 10 total hits:

• "...when the Detroit Race Riot of 1863 broke out..."
• "The Detroit Race Riot of 1863, in which many blacks were..."
• "...more of it burned in the Detroit Race Riot of 1863,"

no lowercase "Detroit race riot of 1863" found in the 10 total hits

broader search: 1863 "Detroit race riot" first 20

lowercase in text uses in first 20 book hits:

• "the riot of 1863" and same book "the 1863 draft riot"
• "an account of the Detroit race riot"
• "On March 6, 1863, the Detroit race riot, the major riot in the midwest, began. "
• (identical copy of the one above)
• (yet another copy of the same text in a different magazine)

uppercase in text uses in first 20 book hits:

• "...that lit the Detroit Riot of 1863 was..." (and "Detroit Race Riot (1863)" in index)

Conclusion from usage data: While caps are somewhat more used with the 1863 event, there's no support for the idea that "Detroit Race Riot of 1863" is an accepted proper name for it. It's found that way in only 3 books. We are free to use a descriptive title of our choosing, and "Detroit race riot of 1863" is probably a good choice. Dicklyon (talk) 19:23, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Survey and discussion

• Support as nom. MOS:CAPS, MOS:MILTERMS, and WP:NCCAPS all seem clear that we don't capitalize generic words like riot unless sources show that they are part of proper names. Dicklyon (talk) 19:30, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose decapitalisation of the Watts Riots, per my comments at the previous move request. Not opposed to the others.My rationale for the "Watts Riots" is as follows. MOSCAPS favours capitalisation when it is necessary. It is necessary here for a variety of reasons.Britannica capitalises the Watts Riots. Per WP:UCN, "Other encyclopedias are among the sources that may be helpful in deciding what titles are in an encyclopedic register, as well as what names are most frequently used". We must write in the encyclopaedic register. Britannica uses capitalisation, and so should we. We're not writing a rag paper. Given that many sources capitalise this, given that many of the usages found by Mr Lyon are descriptive, rather than referring to the actual name of the event, and given that UCN, which is a policy, expressly tells us to consult other encyclopaedias to determine how to refer to an event in the encyclopaedic register, this must remain capitalised. The others are not supported by capitalisation in tertiary sources, and do not have much basis for capitalisation. Watts, on the other hand, seems to clearly have a basis as a proper name in tertiary sources, such as the Britannica. It is also true that Watts is perhaps the most well-known of all these events, likely resulting in its attaining proper name status. UCN tells us that we must give weight to other encyclopaedias, and for that reason it must remain as it is. RGloucester — ☎ 19:12, 14 December 2014 (UTC) RGloucester — ☎ 18:39, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

  You seem to be making the case that we need to style everything as Britannica does? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 07:17, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I've quoted WP:UCN, and am merely saying that we must follow policy. We must weigh sources appropriately, and encyclopaedias are given more weight when determine how to title an article. As the major English-language world encylopaedia for many decades, Britannica is an excellent source to consult in this regard. There is a difference between the encyclopaedic register, the journalistic register, and the academic register. We write in the encyclopaedic register, and how other encyclopaedias title their article can give us insight in how to write in that register. "Watts Riots" is capitalised by Britannica even though it does not capitalise many other such riots. There is a reason for this. We must maintain our standing as an encylopaedia. RGloucester — ☎ 07:54, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

• First, let me thank Dicklyon for compiling all the data above. I am going to have to repeat my opposed !vote from the previous move requests. It's not that I don't think any of these should be moved... but I am not sure that all of them should be moved. I think each needs to be examined individually. In other words, I am more opposed to the mass move rather than I would be to any single individual move. --- That said, I will give a weak support for moving this specific article (ie Houston Riot (1917) -> Houston riot of 1917) ... It's definitely not a firm and unqualified opinion, but my view is that enough sources don't capitalize it... enough that we can not say that this is a COMMONNAME situation (the way Boston Massacre is clearly a COMMONNAME). Blueboar (talk) 22:40, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Why not go ahead and examine each one here, as you suggest? I have provided the data. Or would 6 separated discussions somehow be preferable? Dicklyon (talk) 23:58, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose I'm repeating my oppose vote from the Watts discussion. Dicklyon's argument seems to stem from the legalistic belief that if everyone else makes the same mistake, we should, too. Capitals is appropriate when we're talking about an incident like the Watts Riots. If we were talking about all riots that ever took place in Watts and each was a separate event I might be ok with lowercase. As it is, each of these is an event and should be capitalized. Chris Troutman (talk) 03:46, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

  If everyone does it, is it really a mistake? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 07:17, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support. See my reasons elsewhere. Tony (talk) 04:14, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Tony, that's just short of helpful; if I may, here are links to some of your recently articulated reasons that might apply here: "since capping is minority usage, and our guidelines say to cap only where necessary. No necessity is evident here.", "nowhere near consistently upcased in sources, as would be required (that's just one reason).", "usage stats gathered properly, and WP's house style. ", and Talk:Pottawatomie Massacre#It's very simple: MOSCAPS lays out, in effect, two tests. What did I miss? Dicklyon (talk) 06:30, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Postscript: Is anyone who wants to cap "riot" seriously suggesting that in the main text all references to the riot should be rendered as, for example, "the Riot", "post-Riot debate", etc? Seriously? That would be the logical outcome. Tony (talk) 01:20, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support—The evidence presented here is pretty compelling! There's no reason we need to make this capitalized when it isn't normally. I think in some cases we could leave the dates off. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 07:17, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

...which is a question for another day. Let's discuss of the "proper name" question first. Dicklyon (talk) 06:25, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. I'm still concerned about the attempt to shoehorn several unrelated articles into one discussion. I'm not convinced Watt Riots in particular should be decappped. -- Calidum 01:14, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

What does "shoehorn" mean here? Did I not use the mulit-move template per its intended purpose, for a group of related articles with similar moves? And why not the Watts riots? Did you not find the evidence compelling, or did you not look? Dicklyon (talk) 01:26, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support per nom and the mountain of evidence provided.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:23, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
• Opposed to the change of the Watts Riot, which has become a proper name. Neutral on the others, unless someone wants to argue me into opposing others. My concern holds about this precedent being moved over into other long-standing pages and eras. I've noticed that the "mountain of evidence" provided on some other pages is a very selective mountain, a medium-size peak amongst a long mountain range. Randy Kryn 15:27 21 December, 2014 (UTC)

  I try to base evidence on book search, or also google scholar search when that helps (e.g. for "Watts Riots", which shows even fewer capitalizations than books do; essentially none other than quoted titles). If you know other ways to determine whether things like "Watts Riots" are accepted as proper names, per guidelines like MOS:CAPS and MOS:MILTERMS, let us know. Dicklyon (talk) 16:23, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

• Comment – based on several opposing on Watts Riots, I added what I found in encyclopedias, above in the evidence sections. Seems to be about 90% lowercase. ymmv. Dicklyon (talk) 19:29, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Logistics

• I have done a bit of refactoring to cut down the number of sections here, which should make it easier for other editors to see where to proffer their opinions. Please revert as necessary, but the number of sections was overwhelming. Dekimasuよ! 19:12, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks; I had trouble before with the multiple pings, and the template said it had to be associated with a section, so I thought I'd try a subsection each. I assume they worked and people will still get linked to the page even the section of their ping disappeared. Dicklyon (talk) 19:15, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I didn't get the ping, Mr Lyon, so I don't think anyone else did either. RGloucester — ☎ 19:16, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

If you know how it works, please give it a try here, or this discussion may be underpopulated. Dicklyon (talk) 19:26, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I tried again, one group at a time with fresh signature each time, as that's what I believe worked before. Perhaps it's a pigeon dance. Dicklyon (talk) 20:52, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

FYI... I didn't get a ping either... I just happened to stumble upon it. No need to ping me now, of course. Blueboar (talk) 22:42, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

It would be nice if someone knew enough about this thing to advise how to make it work. Dicklyon (talk) 23:55, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

I suggest asking at the help desk. They're good with these things. My attempt to ping everyone also failed. RGloucester — ☎ 00:17, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I got it this time. Good job! RGloucester — ☎ 03:38, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

The keys are: max 20 pings per edit; and do an edit to clean before before trying a new ping, so the system sees a clean diff; and of course always new four-tilde signature. Dicklyon (talk) 03:45, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Racist name

Regardless of what is popular, this is **not** a riot. Soldiers looting state supplies and doing battle with members of the state has a very specific term in English, "rebellion." If we're going to be impartial, we would use that term regardless of the racism of past generations. I vote to reopen this issue of article naming. To continue this trend is to whitewash intent and confuse the issue. Acceptable names include "mutiny" or "revolt." We even go into detail about the use these terms under the Rebellion page. Perhaps revolt is the most accurate? Evan Carroll (talk) 16:31, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Two confusing sentences need help

There are two sentences that I find confusing and I'm hoping that someone might be able to clarify them. First, under the heading "Precipitating causes", it states "Sparks, searching for the fleeing suspects, entered the house of local resident Sara Travers. He did not find the suspect but after exchanging words with Travers he struck her and dragged her outside in her nightgown. As Sparks and Daniels called in the arrest from an area patrol box, they were approached by Private Alonzo Edwards. Edwards offered to take custody of Travers, but was pistol-whipped repeatedly by Sparks and then arrested." Why would an Army private living at Camp Logan be in a position to "offer to take custody" of a civilian woman from the police? This sounds nonsensical to me, although I don't have access to the source cited. And second, under the heading "Wilson's clemency and commentary", the last sentence reads "Whites who defended Houston from the illegal actions of the rioting blacks were not charged for their actions." This makes no sense. Why would people who are defending their city from illegal actions of rioters be charged with a crime? Can anyone help? Bricology (talk) 08:52, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree that the first account sounds a little odd. The source is The Crisis, pages 14-16. The accounts differ a bit - some say that Private Edwards just approached the two officers, while one says he "asked if he could take her." I'd have no issue with changing that line to something more generic instead of using that one version. Rtoddfox (talk) 15:06, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

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Incongruity

If Sergeant Vida Henry committed suicide, how does that square with the fact that his skull was bashed in and there was a bayonet wound to his shoulder? 173.88.246.138 (talk) 04:27, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

postmortem desecration probably Mdrewcaffin (talk) 17:51, 4 March 2024 (UTC)