Talk:List of Western subgenres

Requested move 12 July 2023

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. 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.

No consensus to move. After extended time for discussion, there is no consensus for a move at this time. BD2412 T 00:28, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

• List of Western subgenres → List of western subgenres
• Lists of Western films → Lists of western films
• List of Western fiction authors → List of western fiction authors
• List of Western video games → List of western video games
• List of Western television series → List of western television series
• List of Spaghetti Western films → List of spaghetti western films
• Horror Western → Horror western
• Florida Western → Florida western
• Acid Western → Acid western
• Science fiction Western → Science fiction western
• Gothic Western → Gothic western
• Dime Western → Dime western
• Contemporary Western → Contemporary western
• Space Western → Space western
• Australian Western → Australian western
• Revisionist Western → Revisionist western
• Spaghetti Western → Spaghetti western

– Western (as a genre of music, writing, film, TV, lifestyle, etc.) is not consistently capitalized in reliable sources, so per MOS:CAPS should not be capitalized here. This proposal includes/implies downcasing of Western in other genre-related contexts, e.g. in Western (genre), but not in uses of Western that distinguish e.g. European from Asian (Occidental vs Oriental) cultures, which are more consistently capitalized in sources. Dicklyon (talk) 05:08, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Note: list of Western films is a redirect and ineligible to be a current title in a move request. "List of Western films → List of western films" had to be changed to "Lists" to bypass the ineligible redirect. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 22:54, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Looks like that was moved while my RM listing was being prepared, and I didn't notice. Dicklyon (talk) 04:09, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Happy to help! Paine  11:24, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

• Note: Many sources don't cap western as a genre, not its variants. For a good example, see this book. When caps are not necessary, WP style is to default to lowercase, per MOS:CAPS. Dicklyon (talk) 05:17, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• MOS:ANGLO- notes that adjectives derived from capitalized nouns (usually, geographic locations, similar to the root terms here "Old West" or "Wild West") are usually capitalized in American English. While "Western"/"western" here is a noun derived from dropping music/writing/film etc., this indicates that MOS:RETAIN may be a factor here. To me, List of western subgenres fails the WP:RECOGNIZABILITY test because I would not understand that it is the genre that is under discussion; I would be wondering which "western area" was being referred to. Likewise, "Florida western" and "Gothic western" sound like they might be referring to architectural styles or something completely unrelated to the actual topics. I understand that this request is rooted in a strict reading of MOS:CAPS, but my initial impression would be that this is probably "consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources" as called for by the guideline regardless of the presence of exceptions, and I would need more evidence in order to lead me to believe that these should be moved to less recognizable titles. Dekimasuよ! 06:59, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• Given the range of pages involved, it would probably best to have a notification of this discussion at Talk:Western (genre), if someone has time. Dekimasuよ! 07:03, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  @Dekimasu: I added a notification there as well as on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Westerns. ButlerBlog (talk) 21:31, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose A Western film is a film set in the American frontier, while a "western film" could easily mean a film made in the west. AP Stylebook advises that "Western" should be capitalized in the context of the film genre, as does Merriam-Webster and the Chicago Manual of Style. I think that's enough to suggest that "Western" is consistently capitalized within the U.S. context and if what Dekimasu is saying is correct, suggests that MOS:RETAIN and/or MOS:TIES should kick in as well. :3 F4U (they/it) 07:38, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support—Downcased in much of the literature. Distinguish from the artistic term "Western", referring to Western European traditions. Tony (talk) 07:56, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose so far per the above; as yet, there is only one individual source cited as evidence that this is downcased in a significant proportion of pertinent reliable sources. Dekimasuよ! 08:33, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose I disagree with the nom's premise regarding "most" sources simply based on my own extensive experience editing hundreds of articles within the Westerns project, both film and television. Of 17 sources that I commonly use across many Westerns genre articles (especially television), 14 capitalize Western as a genre and only 3 do not. Important to note, lest anyone think that I may have cherry-picked sources: I keep this list handy in my userspace for editing articles in the Westerns project, and many of them are also listed as common sources for the Westerns television task force.
  • western
  • Western

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Butlerblog (talk • contribs) 13:56, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

• Note that nom never said "most", so it's not clear what you're disagreeing with; nothing you said contradicts nom's premise. Dicklyon (talk) 15:58, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
  • "most" came from the first comment of the nominator ButlerBlog (talk) 17:47, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
    • I've searched again for "most", and don't see it. I did say "many". Dicklyon (talk) 18:29, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. Without capitalisation, the first four lists basically seem like they're games, authors, and shows from the western part of the world, rather than having to do with the Western genre. Dawkin Verbier (talk) 09:17, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

References

• More evidence – First, I'll accept that capitalization is more common in specialty books on the western genre, as illustrated in the refs above. But also note that the examples of respectable "insider" sources that use lowercase western is good evidence that capitalization is a style choice, not a necessity. In sources more independent of the topic, where capitalization for emphasis is less common, it's much more clear that caps are not "necessary". Examples:

  spaghetti western and country and western music much more often use lowercase western.

  old western movies only caps Western half the time.

  western TV series only caps Western half the time.

  western movie set only caps Western half the time.

  western paperback only caps Western half the time.

  dime western only caps Western half the time.

  western movie where is more lowercase.

  space western more often uses lowercase.

  Generally, capitalization is running a bit ahead, especially in recent years, but the threshold of MOS:CAPS for consistent capitalization in sources independent of the subject is not nearly met for any such phrases. The evidence is clear that caps are not necessary, so per MOS:CAPS, WP should not capitalize. Dicklyon (talk) 15:45, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  • So we can add anything related to the western world to these subgenres? Because without the capitalization this distinction is unclear. Dimadick (talk) 18:05, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

    No, generally not. These are about the western US, not the Western world, as I tried to say already. E.g. Western music is about European vs Asian, while western music is a genre in the US. Dicklyon (talk) 04:11, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

  • @Dicklyon In contrast, there's: (you've also failed to do some of your ngrams correctly and they are very misleading) fixing ping :3 F4U (they/it) 20:25, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

  Australian Western caps Western ~80 percent of the time

  A Western film caps Western 2/3 of the time

  Western as a noun caps Western 100 percent of the time

  Florida Western caps Western 97 percent of the time

  Western fiction caps Western more than 75 percent of the time

  Space Western caps Western 100 percent of the time

  Gothic Western caps Western 85 percent of the time

  Acid Western caps Western 100 percent of the time

  Horror Western caps Western 100 percent of the time

  Revisionist Western caps Western 100 percent of the time

  Science fiction Western caps Western 100 percent of the time

  Spaghetti Western caps Western 100 percent of the time

  Dime Western caps Western 100 percent of the time

:3 F4U (they/it) 20:19, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Evidently the use of the _NOUN constraint in n_grams is not doing the right thing. It's finding 100% capped Western for Spaghetti Western, whereas it's clearly more common lowercase, and those uses are still about westerns (some as adjectives, of course, as in spaghetti western film, but mostly really as nouns). I don't know why that works so poorly; apparently it's hard to infer what's a noun and what's not, especially for words like western that are adjective by default. Dicklyon (talk) 00:43, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

I've been able to fix it, and I do think spaghetti Western is still more common uppercase - see ngram. I'll make a new subsection and try to get this all in order. :3 F4U (they/it) 00:57, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

I'd suggest adding neo-Western and its cousin, contemporary Western, where you might find the Western gunslinger. ButlerBlog (talk) 01:05, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. I do not believe the nominator is correct about the prevalence of uncapitalized "western" based on a quick Google, and from previous RM discussions, the nominator's personal threshold for "amount of uncapitalized usage" to qualify for downcasing is much tighter than the rest of the community, essentially being "if any source anywhere ever used downcasing for any reason." It's certainly tighter than mine. SnowFire (talk) 14:31, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

  You belief about my threshold is patently absurd. My proposal is based on "many" sources, not "any source anywhere"; as always. Dicklyon (talk) 03:44, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

• Support per MOS:GENRECAPS. Capitalized "Western art", "Western music", etc., refers to Western culture, not this sub-sub-sub-sub-genre of it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:17, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

• As a noun (which is how many of these article titles use the term), capitalized "Western" is never used to refer to any or all aspects of Western culture. The Oxford English Dictionary also lists only one meaning for the noun form, which is "a film, television drama, or novel about cowboys". With this in mind, I do agree that Lists of Westerns would be a better title than Lists of Western films, and List of spaghetti Westerns would be a better title than List of Spaghetti Western films. Dekimasuよ! 13:05, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

• Support per MOS:GENRECAPS. The current titles seem to try to convey some special meaning by capitalization, but that's MOS:SIGCAPS, which is not Wikipedia style, and I think it fails to really achieve anything that way. One of them even capitalizes "Spaghetti" in (List of Spaghetti Western films). See also the discussion at Talk:Western music (North America)#Capitalization. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 05:17, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

• Support per MOS:GENRECAPS and MOS:CAPS more generally, along with ngram evidence. Western (capitalised) would generally refer to Western culture. The argument that western in reference to the cowboy genre would fail WP:RECOGNIZABILITY is therefore moot. Using spaghetti western as an example, ngrams using the corpus of American English and all English do not support the argument of capitalising because of national ties. There is an argument made that "Western" is a shortened form of "Old West" or "Wild West" and should also be capitalised. While the connection between the genre and the historical context is not disputed, the linguistic assertion is. This assertion has been discussed and rejected at WT:MOSCAPS. It can also be said to fall to MOS:SIGCAPS, which we also don't do. Moreover, it is not supported by the evidence of usage from ngrams. The evidence of mixed usage from a large sample (ngrams) does not meet the high threshold for necessary capitalisation per MOS:CAPS. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:14, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

• It is not the case that "Western" (capitalized) would generally refer to Western culture when placed at the end of article titles, since article titles are nouns, and there is no noun form of this word used to refer to Western culture. "It's a Western" always refers to something within this genre; dime Western or revisionist Western would never be used to refer to an aspect of Western culture. Likewise, the "Use of capitals in a shortened title" discussion does not seem relevant here, since there are no official positions or institutions involved and this is not a shortened form. The more relevant point here is the Ngram evidence. I would point out that the more relevant corpus search is probably Westerns, since using the plural form of the noun excludes all the other uses of "Western X". That search shows "Westerns" in the clear majority, although whether it is a "substantial majority" as requested by MOS:CAPS seems debatable. Note again that MOS:CAPS does not say that the threshold is "necessary capitalization". The threshold is "consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources." Dekimasuよ! 13:20, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

I did not say that the "threshold is necessary capitalisation". I stated, "the threshold for necessary capitalisation". MOS:CAPS states: Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization. It then gives the criteria (the threshold) to determine what should be capitalise: "consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources." Seaching ngrams for Westerns is a good relevant search and to answer the question, the threshold for capitalisation set by MOS:CAPS is not a simple majority. The wording conveys that this should be a substantial majority. Furthermore, in assessing ngram evidence, some allowance must be made for captions, headings and citations of works where title case is normally used. Past discussions indicate an allowance of about 10%. One can also see here that a high proportion of Westerns (ie capped) occur at the start of a sentence and therefore, do not contribute to determining the question of capitalisation in running prose. Since about 1940, Westerns (capped) is running at about 60% (see here), and this is without applying an allowance for title-case usage. It is fairly conclusive evidence for not capping western here. If, dime Western or revisionist Western would never be used to refer to an aspect of Western culture when used as a stand-alone phrase for an article title, then this is conveyed regardless of the capitalisation. A further reason against the argument of WP:RECOGNISABILITY. However, in prose, gothic Western film or revisionist Western movie could refer to Western culture rather than the cowboy genre. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:56, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

• I would add that while ngram can be a starting point, it lacks substantive context. I have spent a significant amount of time working on Westerns-focused articles, and a good deal of that has involved improving articles by citing sources. As a result, I have waded through hundreds of sources and the vast majority that we would accept as citable here capitalize Western (some of which are noted in my comment above). Additionally, sources support the fact that the genre name comes from the American West: "the West", which would indicate that MOS:GENRECAPS supports capitalization rather than the other way around. ButlerBlog (talk) 14:31, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

  Since the Western is in many ways a uniquely American thing, maybe we should create a version of ENGVAR to preserve Western as it's used in RS (not just popular internet articles). As you noted, the vast majority of academic sources use "Western" to designate this genre (both in literature and film) as opposed to the lower case. Intothatdarkness 14:18, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose as yet another example of Wikipedia trying to press its own norms on the outside world. Western is capitalized as a literary genre, as a category of film, and many other uses. We cannot and should not ignore both academic and literary norms just for the sake of conforming with our own (rather arbitrary) policy. This increasing dogmatic trend is troubling, as we should be respecting the consensus of specialists in the field instead of creating something different. Does this mean we'll be taking aim at things like "novel of the West," which refers to more literary novels (Lonesome Dove has been described using this term) as well as novels set in a more modern timeframe but still taking place in the West? Intothatdarkness 19:52, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

  I very much share Intothatdarkness's concern. It has been clearly shown here that "Western", in its capitalized form, is overwhelmingly common name for movies about the Wild West within the academic research (and general use too! see my ngrams :3 F4U (they/it) 20:29, 17 July 2023 (UTC)) in this topic. While there are some moves here that have some merit (spaghetti western being the primary one), most of these moves do not have merit. :3 F4U (they/it) 20:04, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose I am going with my reference, "The Encyclopedia of Western Movies" which always uses a capital "W", as in the quote, "I'm John Ford, I make Westerns." Carptrash (talk) 21:41, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per Intothatdarkness. Additionally, "Western" implies the genre about the "Wild West", while "western" is ambiguous. Natg 19 (talk) 23:30, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Break: Ngrams data

The Google ngram data has been all over the place, so I'm gonna make a little list so that each one of these moves can be assessed:

Ngrams for different Western subgenres

• Florida Western (ngram - close to 100%)
• Contemporary Western (ngram - ~86%, backed up by 2nd ngram - 100%)
• Australian Western (ngram - ~83%)
• Acid Western (ngram - ~79%)
• Dime Western (ngram - ~75%)
• Spaghetti Western (ngram - ~71%)
• Science fiction Western (ngram - ~70%)
• Gothic Western (ngram- ~66%)
• Space Western (ngram - ~63%)
• Revisionist Western (ngram - ~62%)
• Horror Western (ngram - 50%)

Other relevant Google ngrams searches

• "Western_NOUN" (ngram - 100%; another ngram - 100%)
• "Westerns" (ngram - ~62%)
• "A Western film" (ngram - ~66%);
• Television Western (ngram - ~61%)

Please reply with any other relevant ngrams. I believe the correct process is to determine whether the word "Western" (meaning the genre) should be capitalized, and then applying WP:CONSISTENCY for Western fiction, Western video games, Western films, Western TV series, etc. As for subgenres, they should really be determined on a case by case basis. :3 F4U (they/it) 01:49, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

I see that you would use in some cases, the part of speech function. As noted above, this does not appear to be functioning correctly. ngram info would state: This will sometimes underrepresent uncommon usages, such as green or dog or book as verbs, or ask as a noun. "Spaghetti western" is a noun phrase that reasonably only applies to the Italian made cowboy genre regardless of capitalisation. That the phrase pretty much exclusively refers to the genre can be confirmed by perusing google books eg here. Examples for the part of speech function only use single words, not a phrase. As a noun phrase, "spaghetti western" can act "attributively" to modify another noun such as film, actor or movie. It would appear that, in a fuller noun phrase eg "spaghetti western movie" the function may be parsing "western" as an adjective rather than as a noun. Even though "spaghetti western" is inherently a noun phrase, we see from this ngram that "Spaghetti Western" (both capped) is parsed almost exclusively as a noun, the ngram for "spaghetti western" (neither capped) it is parsed 100% as an adjective, and the ngram for "spaghetti Western (only western capped) it is parsed as a noun slightly more often than as an adjective. If we consider "spaghetti westerns", this ngram shows it has only slightly less usage in the corpus than "spaghetti western" (all forms) and it is consistently considered to be a noun (see also ngram for the common capitalisation variations, this ngram using the part of speech function, and this ngram because the search box isn't long enough). The conclusion is that the part of speech function cannot be relied upon herein for the construction "x western" in the way you would intend. I would suggest that such examples in this sub-section or those listed earlier be struck. Cinderella157 (talk) 11:19, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

@Cinderella157 I see. I was wondering above why the _NOUN search function was not being helpful. This makes sense, striken and moved Horror Western up with the rest of them. :3 F4U (they/it) 12:31, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

References

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

Move discussion re: List of Spaghetti Western films

In the previous move discussion, it was noted that certain subgenres should not be capitalized if the adjective is not a proper noun. For example "spaghetti Western" was specifically noted and suggested that we move List of Spaghetti Western films to List of spaghetti Westerns. I have opened a move discussion on the list article (since that was the one specifically referenced in the previous discussion), but that would logically lead to addressing issues at Spaghetti Western as well. ButlerBlog (talk) 14:55, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: @Freedom4U: @Dekimasu: @Cinderella157: @BarrelProof: - not canvassing, but per WP:APPNOTE wanted to make you all aware of this as each of you commented on "Spaghetti"/"spaghetti" in the above discussion. I have opened a move discussion based on Dekimasu's suggestion that List of Spaghetti Western films be moved to List of spaghetti Westerns. ButlerBlog (talk) 15:03, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Hold on – This idea seems to be rooted in the conception that there would be no consensus to move Spaghetti Western to it much more common form spaghetti western, just because there was no consenss to move all of them. Changing to the mixed case "spaghetti Western", which is rare in sources, would be a bizarre move. I'll comment there, too, but just wanted to make it clear that the lack of consensus above should not be taken as consensus that the capitalization is correct. Dicklyon (talk) 19:48, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

This idea seems to be rooted in the conception that there would be no consensus to move Spaghetti Western to it much more common form spaghetti western, just because there was no consenss to move all of them. No, it's a separate issue. I only pinged you out of courtesy because you commented specifically on "spaghetti" in that discussion. ButlerBlog (talk) 21:13, 24 July 2023 (UTC)