Talk:Special Area of Conservation

Latest comment: 15 years ago by Rockpocket in topic Requested move

Requested move

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The following is a closed 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 to not move the article. While its clear the original legislation did not capitalize the term, its also clear the ongoing, and common usage adopted capitalization. In this case, verifiability trumps any claims of "truth". Rockpocket 18:23, 15 December 2008 (UTC)Reply


The correct form of the term "special area of conservation" is not capitalised. The legislation which established the designation (Council Directive 92/43/EEC of 21 May 1992) does not use capitals: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!prod!CELEXnumdoc&numdoc=392L0043&model=guichett&lg=en states: special area of conservation means a site of Community importance designated by the Member States through a statutory, administrative and/or contractual act where the necessary conservation measures are applied for the maintenance or restoration, at a favourable conservation status, of the natural habitats and/or the populations of the species for which the site is designated Mooretwin (talk) 00:53, 12 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Support: seems like a good move. Rockpocket 02:06, 12 December 2008 (UTC)Reply
Expansion on my overly brief oppose (brought about by posting notifications to a variety of projects that might have members who could usefully contribute to this): the reasons have been given already by the other editors, such as TimTay, Rodw, Jongleur100, and Ghmyrtle.  DDStretch  (talk) 10:01, 12 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Comment - [MOSCAPS] might be helpful: Titles such as president, king, or emperor start with a capital letter when used as a title (followed by a name): "President Nixon", not "president Nixon". When used generically, they should be in lower case: "De Gaulle was the French president." ... Similarly, "Louis XVI was the French king" but "Louis XVI was King of France", King of France being a title in that context. Therefore, "Baston Fen Special Area of Conservation is in England", but "Baston Fen is designated as a special protection area". Mooretwin (talk) 12:19, 12 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Comment - [MOSCAPS again]: When showing the source of an acronym, initialism, or syllabic abbreviation, emphasizing the letters that make up the acronym is undesirable: Incorrect: FOREX (FOReign EXchange), Incorrect: FOREX (foreign exchange), Correct: FOREX (foreign exchange) Therefore, Incorrect: SAC (Special Area of Conversation), Correct: SAC (special area of conservation). Mooretwin (talk) 12:19, 12 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Copied from Talk:Site of Special Scientific Interest:

Comment Do we have a hint of where this problem originates? Mooretwin said that "no legislation ever uses capitals". I wasn't aware of this, but as far as I can find out it does seem to be the case: for example, this source says "British laws don’t use initial capitals for defined terms". If it is true (for whatever reason), it would explain why SSSI, AONB and the rest do seem to be written with lower case initials in legislation. However, if legal writing uses a particular style, it does not make that style "correct" and all contrary usage "incorrect" – for example, legal writing generally avoids commas, but those are by no means incorrect in other writing. Mooretwin, I think you have misunderstood the significance of the lack of caps in the legislation: all you are doing is trying to impose a particular legal idiosyncracy onto general writing, where it does not belong. Actual usage in general writing is the guide for use here, and that usage is very clearly almost always with cap initials. (That would apply even if the phrase originated in the legislation, which as I've pointed out above, it does not.) It's surely clear enough by now that the whole proposal is an unfruitful one, for SSSIs as for the other examples mentioned. I suggest you retire gracefully at this point. Richard New Forest (talk) 14:35, 12 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

Note to closing editor: There appears to be a violation of WP:CANVASS on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Capitals, since the section was started by Mooretwin after the various RMs were proposed by him, and the message is phrased using non-neutral wording and phrasing. I ask Mooretwin to either remove the message or edit it to make it neutral (such as the various messages are that I posted to a variety of projects which the articles would be relevant to by virtue of dealing with UK geographical topics, and/or which have project templates on the corresponding talk pages.)  DDStretch  (talk) 15:31, 12 December 2008 (UTC)Reply


So it's more than 72 hours since the move was requested (just before 01:00GMT on 12/12) and we have had a lot of comment. The guidance is to wait a "few days" for consensus. Do we now have consensus that the move should not be allowed? --TimTay (talk) 08:52, 15 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

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.