Talk:List of Federal Presidents of Austria

Comments

Wouldn't it be good to have a link to the german site too (like on other multilanguage-pages)?

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundespr%E4sident_(%D6sterreich)

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Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus. While there's decent support for the move here, there was substantially less at the related discussion at List of Presidents of the United States, surely a higher traffic article on the English Wikipedia. This issue may need a more comprehensive discussion.Cúchullain ^t/c 15:02, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

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• List of Federal Presidents of Austria → List of federal presidents of Austria
• List of Presidents of Ethiopia → List of presidents of Ethiopia
• List of Presidents of Burma → List of presidents of Burma
• List of Emperors of Ethiopia → List of emperors of Ethiopia
• List of Kings of Burundi → List of kings of Burundi
• List of Presidents of Bangladesh → List of presidents of Bangladesh
• List of Presidents of the British Virgin Islands → List of presidents of the British Virgin Islands

– For unknown reasons, many titles that include the word "president" and such were moved without comment or discussion by User:Sundostund to capitalized form last year. We should fix those, and quite a few more, per MOS:CAPS. Probably he was just trying for consistency, but went the wrong direction to get there. Dicklyon (talk) 05:55, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I think its aesthetically better to have capitalized form of titles that include the word "President". 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 Dicklyon's edits on this matter last year. The other reason is, indeed, consistency. Dicklyon, if you decide to work on this issue in the future, you'll need to fix much more articles than "quite a few more", as you said: Literary countless of lists of presidents and other heads of states and governments on Wikipedia have capitalization. Its much better to leave it this way. --Sundostund (talk) 13:54, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I have not moved any of these pages, but I see now that Jojalozzo had been doing case fixes that you reverted; many of his "List of kings..." moves are still at the correct lower case per MOS:CAPS. The amount of fixing to be done is not a big deal if people will let it happen. Dicklyon (talk) 14:46, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

• Support as nom, per WP:JOBTITLES. Dicklyon (talk) 14:49, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose, as said above. --Sundostund (talk) 16:10, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support for moves in which president, king, emperor are used as common nouns as they are in the above list. Also support for other similar changes with the caveat that care be taken not to downcase the official name of a high office. Jojalozzo 11:37, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose based on Jojalozzo's proviso. I note that, in List of Queens and Empresses of France, Queen, Empress, Emperor, and King are capitalized as official titles, but monarch (lower case) is used as a common noun. The same seems to apply if you research England. Surely regional practices (and regional MOS) should be consulted on this one. Also if you are going to change European titles like Kings, Queens, Emperors and Empresses to lower case in List of ... articles then surely you first need to change President in List of Presidents of the United States to lower case P for consistency—or would it be better to change the title from List of Presidents... to List of monarchs (of the US) to be consistent with the French and Chinese articles? I am pretty sure that Chinese and Japanese practice is NOT to call their Emperors "monarchs" but I see that some (censored) has been messing with the List of ... Chinese article. LittleBen (talk) 16:30, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Is there something relevant in a regional MOS? I don't find anything. Dicklyon (talk) 16:32, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Ben, you misunderstand my proviso: king, queen, president etc are upper case titles only when used with a person's name (e.g. "President Obama", "Emperor Napoleon") . Used alone or to describe a group of people (e.g. "the French president" or "the kings of France") they are common noun, lower case, job titles. My proviso addresses official names of a high office like "King of France" or "President of the United States of America". "List of presidents of the United States" is about a group of people who were presidents of the US. There is no need to capitalize "president" there. "List of queens and empresses of France" is about people who were queens and empresses, lower case, it's not about the official name of an office. Jojalozzo 16:40, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Particularly in Asia and Europe, I believe that it is NOT the practice in press-quality English to use lower-case for titles like Kings, Queens, Emperors and Empresses (even if prefixed by List of...). This is something that needs to be decided based on local (press) practices and commonsense rather than arbitrary Wikipedia rules. Why is President in List of Presidents of the United States capitalized, then? Surely the same applies to List of Church Fathers. And there's also Ladies (nobility). Some words are considered honorific titles rather than common nouns, and are always capitalized. I agree with Sundostund that there's no point in wheel-warring on US English vs. European: when in doubt, it's better to err on the side of treating other cultures, religions, whatever, with respect. The Chinese articles seem to be a mess — most use Emperor, but somebody has been changing Emperor to monarch in a few of them to remove the capitalization. Why doesn't someone change all references to President in American articles to monarch for the same reason? ;-) You might take a look at The Presidents, The First Ladies, Fellows, List of children of the Presidents of the United States, List of Presidential pets, List of Presidents of the United States with facial hair, Handedness of Presidents of the United States, List of Presidents of the United States Chess Federation, and so on... LittleBen (talk) 17:50, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not an academic journal or book published by a certain Chicago academic publisher, it surely needs to follow accepted international newspaper and book publishing norms — particularly as regards choice of article titles and capitalization of titles. This means doing adequate research and being flexible, rather than slavishly following rules. I don't think it's appropriate for Wikipedia to attempt to slavishly follow or clone a certain long, rambling, repetitive, poorly-organized, and overly-prescriptive Chicago academic style guide and impose it on the whole of English Wikipedia. In the real world, there are surely countries where you may be thrown in jail for not standing for the national anthem at the beginning of a movie, and any English-language media that dared to use lower-case e for Emperor might be shut down. LittleBen (talk) 02:08, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia has its own style for titles as set out in Titles of people. If you disagree, I suggest you bring this up on the talk page there rather than arguing it here. Jojalozzo 03:37, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

LittleBen, I totally agree with everything what you said here. I really don't have anything more to add to your words, you already said everything. Cheers! --Sundostund (talk) 09:16, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Sundostund, Thanks for the kind words. You might also be interested in adding your opinion to the related discussions here and here. LittleBen (talk) 15:11, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose All at this point. - See Same here. Seems like all the "List of Presidents of COUNTRY X" have been requested to be renamed by Dicklyon.--MrBoire (talk) 18:39, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support all—No need to capitalize; not proper names. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:50, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support all per correct usage in English: Dick LeithA social history of English - Page 24 1997 "Moreover, while some kings of England waged long, costly, and fruitless wars against France," See also refs under "King George III / kings and queens of England" just added to article capitalization in English. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:19, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
• Support all, unless, logically, the opposers are insisting that Politician and Cleaner and Candlestick Maker also be capped. Where would that slippery slop end? Tony (talk) 00:12, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
• Comment for the closing admin Talk:List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States#Requested_move affects the same set of articles, please try to close them together. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:37, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Indeed, the opposing comments here are just aesthetic opinions not based in guidelines or policy, plus LittleBenW's invocation of the List of Presidents of the United States as controlling precedent. I don't see that one as precedent, as many seem to argue that it is more special, due to "President of the United States" being the official name of the office, which is not the case on these others (at least mostly not). And even that's a flaky rationale, since the article is not about the plural of the titles of the office. Anyway, I only picked cases from the early part of the alphabet, to test the waters, before working on more. Dicklyon (talk) 03:53, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support all per above. Not proper names, thus no need to capitalise. Ignorant Armies (talk) 05:25, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
• Support all: Titles like this, even of royalty (kings, dukes, emperors, etc.) are never capitalized except when they precede the name of a specific individual (President Lincoln, Queen Elizabeth II, but presidents of the United States, kings and queens of England). — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 09:15, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
  • I disagree. As a full title, it should be capitalized: "He was the first President of the United States," "King of Spain", etc., because it's a specific formal title. However, when saying something like "Two presidents of the United States have been impeached," then it makes sense to lowercase. The question is, which do we use in the case of "List of X"? Are we saying "X" is the formal title (as it is in the article titles) and we're just prepending 'List of', or does the presence of "List of" make the rest informal? --Golbez (talk) 14:57, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
    • The only example usage of the plural that I can find in books is here. It's definitely talking about a set of individuals, but uses lower case. So should we. Dicklyon (talk) 15:15, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
      • This only means that those books have chosen that style of capitalization. As you always say, wikipedia has its own style rules. We should decide if this is the plural of the specific formal title, or an informal plural, and then capitalize according to our own rules. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:24, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
        • If we consciously choose a construction that means "plural of the formal title" (or "office" in MOSCAPS parlance) then we're referring to multiple offices not multiple office holders. The "informal plural" means the set of "those who are serving or have served as x". I have a strong preference for the latter since it's more active, descriptive and human, it doesn't create the ambiguity of multiple offices, and because our style specifically capitalizes a "very high ranking office [only when it refers] to a specific and obvious person as a substitute for their name" with the converse being that we never capitalize a high ranking office to identify a generic group. Jojalozzo 18:04, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
          • But every element of the list is a specific and obvious person, and it is a substitute for their names..... This is a list of people who are Federal President of Austria. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:41, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
• Talk:List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States#Requested_move was closed as "No move". Many people commented there but not here. --Enric Naval (talk) 14:46, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
  • I completely agree with closing as "No move" at Talk:List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States#Requested_move. I think same should be done here, because that list was always cited as an example for what to do in these cases. --Sundostund (talk) 22:27, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

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

Note: The associated article at List of Federal Presidents of Austria was later converted to a redirect on 8 May 2018‎. —BarrelProof (talk) 19:52, 5 August 2019 (UTC)