Template talk:Mosques in Palestine

Capitalization of the definite article

@Debresser: The article "al-" should be lowercased for mosques per MoS which only calls for capitalization if it's the first word of a sentence or a family name. Plus, the main word i.e. the "Khader" of "al-Khader", should be emphasized and not the definite article. --Al Ameer (talk) 22:25, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Agreed that the main word should be capitalized. Did I undo that by mistake? But where names stand alone, for example in a list, they should also be capitalized. That is like the beginning of a sentence. By the way, please notice that our article titles also use the capital, for this same reason.

I'd also like to remind you of WP:BRD, and ask you not to revert again to your deviation of what was the consensus version, before you obtain consensus. Debresser (talk) 23:01, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

@Debresser: First of all, based on some of our past discussions, I don't think you understand what consensus means. If you look at the past history, the definite article had been lowercase since the template was created in 2011 until you changed it in June, which I reverted (and then you reverted back). Not surprisingly, because this issue is pretty minor, it hasn't been discussed here so there is no consensus to speak of for either approach.

Secondly, you didn't lowercase the main word, but when the definite article is also capitalized, it takes focus away from the main word and more importantly it screws up the alphabetical order the mosques are listed in. That's why when these articles are categorized, they are sorted by the main word first i.e. "Category:Mosques|Khader, al". I don't believe that because the articles stand alone that, the first-word-in-a-sentence guideline applies. --Al Ameer (talk) 23:21, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

To reply to your last point first. I do believe that the fact that our article titles use capitalization is an additional argument to do so in a list. In general, as I said, I think that every item in a list is like the beginning of a new sentence. I do not think that the capital takes away focus, or that focus is even an argument. I do not understand why the alphabetic order would be "screwed up" because of the capitalization, and would appreciate it if you could explain that again. Thank you for the correction as to how this evolved historically, and I will ignore the personal attack. Debresser (talk) 10:39, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

@Debresser: Not a personal attack, but you shouldn't throw around the word "consensus" when none exists and when the long-standing version you're defending is not the actual long-standing version, which used lowercase letters. With that in mind, it would be proper for you to self-revert and restore the actual long-standing version (which you changed) while we discuss here. Not that there is much more to discuss.

By "focus", I mean "emphasis".

The capitalization of the definite article screws up the alphabetical order because the definite article starts with the letter "A" while the main word might start with a different letter. In these cases the "A" should not be emphasized, it's merely a formality. In fact if we were to change all of the mosque names to their correct Arabic transliterations, they would all begin with the definite article. Because the definite article is a mere formality, it should not be emphasized and take alphabetical priority over the main word, and the best way not to emphasize it is to make it lowercase. Alternatively, we could remove the definite article, but I think making it lowercase would be preferable.

I don't think you're interpretation of MoS Arabic is correct here. Then again, it might be a good idea to post a query about capitalization of the definite article in templates at MoS Arabic's discussion page. --Al Ameer (talk) 16:54, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

As I thought, the capitalization of the definite article has no influence whatsoever on sorting. Your "explanation" is the same as saying it changes the focus, which I also disagree with. It is not a major issue, but I see no reason to divert from the normal rules of capitalization, and I think MoS/Arabic in its present form agrees with this. Debresser (talk) 15:56, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't want to continue this conversation because it doesn't look like we're getting anywhere and the issue is not a content dispute so much as a style dispute. I posted a thread at MoS Arabic about capitalizing the definite article in navigation boxes. So far, one user commented and supports your interpretation of MoS Arabic. I disagree and am waiting for more input. I will ultimately respect whichever interpretation or new rule they decide on. You can track the discussion yourself. If not, I'll just update this discussion page whenever something of a consensus decision is made. --Al Ameer (talk) 15:27, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

I see the discussion is at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Arabic#Capitalizing_the_definite_articles_in_templates. I shall comment there in short as well. Debresser (talk) 22:05, 27 October 2015 (UTC)