Talk:Vice-admiral of the Red

Requested move 22 October 2022

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.

The result of the move request was: moved to Vice-admiral of the Red and keeping Vice-admiral of the White per discussion consensus, MOS:JOBTITLES, and MOS:HYPHENCAPS. (closed by non-admin page mover) — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 12:23, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

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• Vice-admiral of the red → Vice-Admiral of the Red
• Vice-admiral of the White → Vice-Admiral of the White

– Consistent capitalization with (most of) the other eight ranks, e.g. Rear-Admiral of the Red. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:45, 20 October 2022 (UTC) This is a contested technical request (permalink). Extraordinary Writ (talk) 04:00, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Per MOS:HYPHENCAPS, Wikipedia does not ordinarily capitalize a word that follows a hyphen, so this appears to need discussion. Also, the article Rear admiral (Royal Navy) does not use a hyphen between "Rear" and "admiral", as well as not capitalizing "admiral". —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 09:00, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

This is a specific historic rank, not a generic one, so your example of Rear admiral (Royal Navy) does not apply. This would appear to be the exception to the general grammatical rule as well. Capitalisation appears to be inconsistent, but IMO the majority capitalise both parts. At the very least, all nine articles should be consistent. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:46, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

"Capitalisation appears to be inconsistent" = "don't capitalise this in Wikipedia".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:04, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not capitalize things just because they are official terms or specific positions. See MOS:SIGCAPS and MOS:JOBTITLE (which says "The formality (officialness), specificity, or unusualness of a title is not a reason to capitalize it"). —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 02:56, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

The above comments were copied from WP:RM/TR by Extraordinary Writ (talk) at 04:01, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

• Comment This is a question in multiple parts which ultimately applies to some nine main articles and not only the two listed. I would make the following observations. I would also note this publication, Commissioned officers' careers in the Royal Navy, 1690–1815, as it gives some context.

• IMHO, the colours are proper names (not descriptive) of the nominal squadrons and should be capitalised accordingly.
• Until 1743 there was in principle only one officer of each of these ranks but after this time, there was a multiplication so that by 1815, there were 219 flag officers on the RN's books. I note that our articles are silent on this multipluication. These are not discrete positions and this may have some bearing on how we consider the guidance at MOS:JOBTITLE.
• We might consider these positions as job titles and (nominally) capitalise these in full [w]hen a formal title for a specific entity (or conventional translation thereof) 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. But noting the afore, is this the title for a specific entity?
• We would certainly not nominally capitalise in full when preceded by the, as done in the lead of this article.
• Should we use the hyphenated form of the rank in the fuller name phrase (eg rear-admiral v rear admiral). Per MOS:HYPHEN, I believe that the hyphen is probably correct but also note that the sources cited tend not to use the hyphen.
• If we use the hyphenated form, should we capitalise admiral? MOS:HYPHENCAPS is quite clear that we should not.

Cinderella157 (talk) 10:51, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

• Uppercase "Red" per Cinderella157. Leave the rest the way it is. Uppercase for "admiral" is not justified by MOS:JOBTITLES, both because there is a hyphen and because this rank fails the "specific entity" test. It primarily is about a rank held by a class of officers, not one officer at a time, so it is a common noun, not a proper noun, and the capitalization in sources is acknowledged to be mixed. Inconsistency with similar article titles should be corrected by changing the other article titles that don't follow the Wikipedia convention. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 14:52, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
• Uppercase the name of the squadron, whether it's the Red, Blue or White squadron, but lowercase the rest unless it is part of a person's name (Jones was vice-admiral of the Red, but Vice-admiral of the Red Jones). We lowercase ranks because they are common nouns. If used as part of a person's name, the letter following a hyphen would usually not be capitalized, but if it is capitalized consistently in historical and modern sources, that's ok too (Vice-Admiral of the Red Jones). SchreiberBike | ⌨  19:18, 22 October 2022 (UTC)
• I'll concur with BarrelProof and SchreiberBike above.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:21, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
• Concur with concurrences above. Primergrey (talk) 20:09, 24 October 2022 (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.