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Latest comment: 2 years ago by Teishin in topic Capitalization of the terms 'Neoplatonic', 'Neoplatonism', 'Neoplatonist' and 'Neopythagorean'.
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Ancient Greek philosophy and MOS:DOCTCAPS

Latest comment: 3 years ago20 comments6 people in discussion

I’ve encountered an issue about the capitalization of the names of the ancient Greek schools of philosophy. In the literature on these philosophies it is conventional to capitalize their names. While some of these names derive from the names of founders, such as Epicurean, or places “Megarian”, others do not, such as “Peripatetic,” “Cynic,” and “Gnostic.” Some involve adjectives, such as Middle Platonism and Modern Stoicism. Unlike in the academic literature, where the convention is to capitalize all of these, due to some interpretations of MOS:DOCTCAPS some of these names are being lowercased. A particularly egregious example on Wikipedia involves the widespread inconsistency involving “Neoplatonism,” “neoplatonism”, and “Neo-Platonism.” While there is the bright-line the interpretation that the names of the ancient philosophies have all long ago come to be accepted as proper names that should be capitalized (even my spell-checker didn’t want to allow me to write “neoplationism” without the capital N), there are interpretations that these are not proper names and therefore should not be capitalized. This, of course, opens scores of issues. If “Neoplationism” is not to be capitalized, why then do we have Neostoicism capitalized? And for that matter, shouldn’t it be “stoicism” and “modern stoicism” and “middle Platonism” etc.? And if we do that, why is it that Wikipedia’s capitalization on these articles is so different from that used in the sources the articles are based upon? Teishin (talk) 16:21, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Teishin, the Oxford English Dictionary indeed has:
  • "Neoplatonist",
  • "cynicism" (1. (with capital C.) The philosophy of the Cynics"),
  • "stoicism" (1. (With capital initial.) The philosophy of the Stoics.),
  • "peripatetic" (1. Philosophy. Usually in form Peripatetic. A student or follower of Aristotle, an Aristotelian; the sect of such followers; (more generally) a scholastic philosopher.),
  • "gnostic" (A 2. (With capital initial.) Pertaining to the Gnostics; having an occult or mystic character. B 1. Historical. (With capital initial.) Chiefly plural. The designation given to certain heretical sects among the early Christians who claimed to have superior knowledge of things spiritual, and interpreted the sacred writings by a mystic philosophy (cf. gnosis n.).)
The pattern seems to be that yes, while possible to write words like "stoic" and "epicure" in lower case in their general senses, when referring to the actual philosophical schools and their members, an upper case initial is used to make this plain. GPinkerton (talk) 16:40, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes, that's what is done outside Wikipedia. However, in Wikipedia we have this in the MOS, which is being used support not capitalizing these normally capitalized terms: "Doctrines, ideologies, philosophies, theologies, theories, movements, methods, processes, systems or "schools" of thought and practice, and fields of academic or professional study are not capitalized, unless the name derives from a proper name." Teishin (talk) 16:54, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
Teishin, that is illogical in these instances; "gnostic philosophy" means something different to "Gnostic philosophy", and a "Peripatetic philosopher" is very different thing to a "peripatetic philosopher". GPinkerton (talk) 17:00, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
There's nothing in the MOS to allow for exceptions based on such logic. Teishin (talk) 17:12, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
Teishin, there ought to be. It's more than obvious that "democrat", "republican", "labour", and "conservative" all mean different things when capitalized and are not related to any proper nouns. GPinkerton (talk) 17:17, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
Not to mention "catholic" and "orthodox" meaning very different things when capitalized! GPinkerton (talk) 17:18, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
I think that per the MOS that upper-case "Catholic" and "Orthodox" are accepted when referring to those churches. The MOS here specifically uses "republican" as an example: "E.g., lowercase republican refers to a general system of political thought (republican sentiment in Ireland); uppercase Republican is used in reference to specific political parties with this word in their names (each being a proper-noun phrase) in various countries (a Democratic versus Republican Party stalemate in the US Senate)." So, by this we should be using lower-case "stoicism" to refer to a general system of philosophical thought. Teishin (talk) 17:28, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
Teishin, Exactly. GPinkerton (talk) 17:41, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
GPinkerton, right. It's a huge area in which what is standard practice among most editors is contrary to some interpretations of the MOS, causing substantial inconsistencies. Teishin (talk) 18:36, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

I’ve found some previous discussions related to this:

  • Objectivism discussion [1]. No clear consensus, but “Objectivism” is capitalized contrary to arguments otherwise based on MOS.
  • Me Too movement discussion [2]. No clear consensus, but “Me Too” is capitalized contrary to arguments otherwise based on MOS.
  • A discussion about similar capitalization inconsistencies in Paganism [3] that appears to be unresolved, and is another instance of inconsistent capitalization. Teishin (talk) 20:48, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
    • Your repeated characterization of this as "inconsistent capitalization" and "contrary to arguments otherwise based on MOS" prejudices this discussion. It is clear that there is a difference in meaning between a peripatetic philosopher (a philosopher who wanders around, following the common English meaning of the word) and a Peripatetic philosopher (one who belongs to the Peripatetic school of philosophy). In one case we are using the word as a common English word and in the other we are using it as a proper noun. This seems to be entirely consistent both with standard English capitalization of proper nouns, with MOS:COMMONNAME, and with the examples above like democratic/Democratic, catholic/Catholic, etc., where the capital is meaningful and indicates association with a specific group of people for whom this is a proper noun. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:22, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
      David Eppstein, yes, there is the interpretation that the names of philosophies have all long ago come to be accepted as proper names that should be capitalized, but that’s not what is said in MOS:DOCTCAPS, at least with regard to a common interpretation of the MOS. While it’s true that a philosopher described as a “peripatetic” might just be someone given to walking around rather than one who is a follower of Aristotle, is anyone more likely to make that inference than in the corresponding case of a philosopher described as a “feminist,” as they happen to endorse feminism, rather than one who is directly involved in Feminist philosophy? Yet, according to MOS:DOCTCAPS we have lower-case feminist philosophy whereas we do not have lower-case peripatetic philosophy. While the editors of ancient Greek philosophy largely act in agreement with your interpretation, the editors of most modern philosophies are doing the opposite. These style differences start butting up against each other in places where ancient meets modern, such as in Late Antique philosophy. An extreme example of this can be found with Neoplatonism where usage even in single articles is inconsistent. It can also be found with modern Neo-Aristotelian philosophies such as Objectivism, where Objectivism gets capitalized just like ancient Greek philosophies. Similarly, both “Modern” and “Stoicism” get capitalized in Modern Stoicism, but we get lower-case Neomodernism and Postmodernism. Teishin (talk) 16:38, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
      I concur with David Eppstein. See also Platonic idealism versus platonic relationship. The Objectivism case is more like Scientology and Dianetics; it's something of a combination of published work and brand/trademark, commingled with a religion-style belief system. It's an odd, outlying case, an "exception that proves the rule" as they say, by how rarely it comes up. It is not evidence that the guideline is broken. The reason this is a guideline and not policy is explained at WP:P&G: "Guidelines are sets of best practices supported by consensus. Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply." (And no, that doesn't me "ignore any guideline just because I feel like it"; it means consensus may conclude that a guideline needs an exception for a particular case, and Objecitivism would clearly qualify. See also first rule of MOS:CAPS: WP capitalizes that which is found capitalized in the vast majority of reliable, independent sources. Most sources capitalize "Objectivism" but they do not capitalize "communism" or "conservatism" or "existentialism" or "nihilism" or "denialism" or .... In short, you're trying to argue that because consensus decided in a handful of cases to not apply a guideline where it didn't make good sense to apply it, that the guideline is faulty, when policy actually tells us explicitly that guidelines should not be applied where they do not make good sense to apply them.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:51, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
SMcCandlish, okay, that explains why there should be an exception for "Objectivism", which I only brought up because I had found a related discussion on it, but it does not give guidance on what should be done with ancient Greek philosophy. The majority of our sources capitalize these philosophies, treating them like they are organizations (which for the most part they were only in the loosest sense). The problem is that we're not consistent with the style of most sources, nor are we consistent with ourselves, nor do we appear to have a rationale for why particular cases are being handled as they are. On what basis can we support having "neoplatonism" yet having "Modern Stoicism"? Or for that matter, "Stoicism" and "Peripetiticism" - both are based on common nouns. On what basis are these good sense? Teishin (talk) 01:09, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
'On what basis can we support having "neoplatonism" yet having "Modern Stoicism"'? None that I can think of, but I'm not deeply steeped in those topics. David Eppstein may have better input on that. At first glance, though, it just looks like someone didn't follow the guideline. The reason MOS:DOCTCAPS exists in the first place is that various adherents or students of any number of philosophies, industrial practices, academic schools of thought, artistic schools of practice, etc., have a strong desire to capitalize them and anything associated with them (thus also MOS:GAMECAPS, etc.), and use the WP:Specialized-style fallacy to try to justify it (i.e., sources written by other people who are adherents of those things tend also to capitalize them). WP has not been, by any means, entirely cleaned up yet of such over-capitalization, so you may have just stumbled upon some. I don't personally wallow in the philosophy articles; there may be RfCs that concluded to capitalize certain things, the way we decided (wisely or not) to permit capitalization of various music and other arts genres if we decide they are "major movements", whatever that means (thus "rock 'n' roll" and "jazz" but "Classical"). There may be reasons to capitalize certain philosophical schools that I have not pored over (aside from really obvious ones like eponyms; Platonism and neo-Platonism will have a capital P because of Plato; we don't decapitalize eponyms unless they become rather "divorced" from their namesakes, as in "their platonic relationship" or "her employer's draconian rules", versus "Platonic idealism" and "the Draconian constitution of Athens"). PS: On "neoplatonism", that runtogether no-caps style seems crappy to me, but it's well-attested enough we shouldn't try to "prohibit" it. We now have a footnote about this style, though I think maybe it should move to MOS:EPONYM, as it's presently at MOS:PEOPLANG but actually has more general applicablity.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:24, 6 February 2021 (UTC); note added 05:33, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

With regard to Greek philosophy is that the names of many of the philosophies have come to develop meanings that differ from what the philosophies proposed. For example, the meaning of "cynicism" is a derogatory caricature of Cynic philosophy. Perhaps MOS:DOCTCAPS should be amended to account for this situation. Perhaps something like "in cases of definitional differences in which a non-capitalized term differs in meaning from that of the philosophy, the name of the philosophy should be capitalized." Teishin (talk) 22:08, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Here's an article [4] about the importance of capitalizing the names of the ancient Greek philosophies because the philosophies are so different in meaning from the lower-case versions of the words. Teishin (talk) 22:17, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

In my eyes, it seems un-wikipedian not to follow the lead of RS. I think that whenever there is a consensus/agreement/uniformity among RS in capitalizing a name (of a philosophy, religion, movement etc), we should stick to it. I am judging from my experience with Pre-socratic philosophy. Cinadon36 09:07, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Is this not an instance of the specialized-style fallacy? 207.161.86.162 (talk) 06:16, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Discussion about capitalisation of Black (people)

Latest comment: 3 years ago49 comments24 people in discussion

Although I disagree with the outcome, I'm not suggesting raising a new discussion right here right now, but I would like to see this discussion referenced, summarised and noted on this article page, perhaps under Peoples and their languages. Unless I am missing something, there is no mention, and therefore no guide at all, about this matter, and I have just come across a new editor who has capitalised all instances of "Black" in the Lynching article. People need to have some guidance in the MOS in order to prevent edit-warring. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 03:09, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Laterthanyouthink, "Lynching" or "lynching"? GPinkerton (talk) 09:36, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
? Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean, GPinkerton. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 09:42, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
Nothing really, it's just another word that can be capitalized or not, but usually isn't, even though it purports to relate to the proper name of someone called Lynch. Like boycott. GPinkerton (talk) 09:47, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
Not a parallel case in any way. Words of eponymous origin lose their capitalization when their connection to the original namesake is basically lost except to researchers (also includes fully genericized trademarks). If the average person doesn't know it originated as an eponym/trademark, then we usually don't capitalize it: Have a sandwich and some aspirin when boycotting mesmerizing zippers on cardigans. In this case, I don't think "lynching" and "lynch mob" are frequently capitalized any longer in mainstream sources. That doesn't relate in any way to adding capitalization to an otherwise generic word when it's serving a special role of proper name in a particular context.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:22, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
True enough, but the comment I commented on does use "Lynching", which caught my eye. GPinkerton (talk) 16:00, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
Yes, the RfC result should be added, though I was confused at first by you referring to part of MOS:CAPS as an "article page"; I though you were saying to put it in mainspace somewhere, heh.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:22, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
Colors are not capitalized in English unless they are the first word in a sentence. Adjectives are only capitalized when their are proper nounses: ie, African, or English. Black, white, yellow, et al. are not capitalized. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BlauGraf (talk • contribs) 17:42, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
Um, the entire point of this discussion is that sometimes they are, when they mean certain things, and if it suits the house style of the publication. You appear to really be arguing "Colors should not be capitalized in English unless they are the first word in a sentence", which is just a personally subjective stance of prescriptive grammar. Many of us may agree with it, but it doesn't change in any way the fact that capitalization of these terms is increasing in reliable sources, when they carry an ethno-racial meaning, but that these sources are doing it inconsistently (from each other and sometimes even within the same publication), and with conflicting rationales. We are thus left with the legitimate style question of what style to use on Wikipedia. Our obvious default per MOS:CAPS's first rule would be to use lower-case consistently, because the terms are not consistently capitalized in sources. However, an argument can be made that in this particular sense they are serving the function of proper names, so lower-casing them produces an inconsistency with the treatment of other names. This is another of our common cases of different kinds of consistency in conflict, which can be tedious to resolve, and the resolution of which never makes everyone perfectly happy.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:07, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Wording proposal on ethnic/racial terms, in light of the recent RfC

I didn't realize how screwed up that section was until just now; see thread below about fixing it up to actually say anything about capitalization of anything at all! As for this thread's proposed addition, here's some draft language, attempting to "marry" the RfC to other pre-existing provisions like MOS:ARTCON and MOS:TONE:

Ethno-racial "color labels" may be given capitalized (Black and White) or lower-case (black and white); do not mix the styles inconsistently in the same article (Black but white).[1] Brown should not be used in Wikipedia's own voice, as it is ambiguous and in the current popular sense is informal, an Americanism, and a neologistic usage which conflicts with prior more specific senses. The old epithets Red and Yellow, plus Colored (in the American sense) and Negro, are generally taken to be offensive. When used in the context of direct quotations, titles of works, and organization names ("... Dr. Fu Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man"; E. R. Baierlein's In the Wilderness with the Red Indians; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; United Negro College Fund), follow the original's spelling. The term Coloured in reference to a specific ethnic group of Southern Africa is not a slur, and is capitalized; person/people of colo[u]r is not offensive, and not capitalized.

Hopefully that will encapsulate the gist. The footnote in it would cite the RfC above, after it is archived to a specific archive page (probably here but possibly there, depending on the archiver bot).

The problem is really that the close isn't quite as clearly written as it could've been, and at first seems to imply "consensus against ever capitalizing", but really just means we're not going to change the guideline to recommend what the RfC proposed (capitalizing "Black" by itself). There was no pre-existing consensus to never capitalize, and many articles already capitalized both terms (as do many RS, as the capitalization has been quite common since at least the 1980s, just not in news writing). The RfC didn't actually result in a consensus to undo that permissiveness, just a consensus against lopsided capitalization of "Black" by itself. ARTCON has been a guideline since forever and other guidelines are derived from it (e.g. MOS:US, and various parts of MOS:NUM on being consistent within the same article, and really you can just search all the MoS pages for the words "consistent" or "consistency" and you'll find lots of provisions that are basically re-statements of ARTCON for a specific narrow circumstance. So, I think it's reasonable to say that either style is still permissible if it's done consistently ("Black and White" or "black and white"); we just did not get anything like a consensus for "Black but white", even in US-specific articles. And it's pretty obvious that we should not use offensive terms in wiki-voice, though exactly which qualify will not always be obvious to everyone, so spelling out a little of that is worthwhile. MOS:PMC is important, too, and should be referenced here; same with MOS:NEO, for which "Brown" is a good case study.

If others do not accept this reading of the RfC and its odd close, in combination with other MoS material, then we should re-RfC it to get a clearer answer, perhaps testing my draft wording here against some alternatives (though of course I'm amenable to wordsmithing revisions without going that far. :-)
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:44, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish, whatever we post, I hope that it will make it quick and easy for me to figure out whether this edit should be encouraged or reverted. (Please ping me if you need a reply; I'm not watching this page.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:15, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: Judging from the RfC and from long-stable guidelines, that should be discouraged/reverted (MOS:STYLEVAR, WP:MEATBOT), except in conformance changes, e.g. to change "black" to match "white", or "White" to match "Black", or whatever (whichever style had overall been dominant in the article). I.e., the solid conclusion of the RfC is that there's consensus against doing "white" but "Black" in the same article, even if a consistent upper-case style or a consistent lower-case style are both equally okay. For that particular edit, I guess one would need to look at the rest of it (was this a few stray cases of "Black" in a sea of "black" and "white"?), and also whether someone else had previously gone in and robotically changed "black" to "Black" (but left "white") to mimic AP style, in which case the editor in your diff is the one restoring content to before someone else engaged in a STYLEVAR fault.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:30, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
In an ideal world colour-coded symbols for race wouldn't be acceptable. And what is so "white" about Europeans? Pinko-grey might be closer to the mark. Has "African American" become unfashionable? Tony (talk) 04:23, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
You probably wanted to write "beige", but many Europeans also have it bronze / light brown. If your skin color is pinkish-gray, then urgently go to the doctor! What is so "white" about White people? There is nothing white, as well as nothing "black" in Black people (the darkest possible shade of a person on the planet: dark brown). But it is better to use colors, because: African-American or Euro-American or Irish-American is absurd, they have nothing to do with Africa or Europe or Ireland, only their distant ancestors. But at the same time, among White or Black people - different skin tones. A White person whose ancestors are from Greece, Lebanon or Italy may even have the same or darker skin color than a Black person in the United States. HernánCortés1518 (talk) 15:54, 15 May 2021 (UTC)
Yes: Why We’re Capitalizing Black (NYT, July 5, 2020), The Washington Post announces writing style changes for racial and ethnic identifiers (Washington Post, July 29, 2020, "Beginning immediately, The Washington Post will uppercase the B in Black to identify the many groups that make up the African diaspora in America and elsewhere."), Why we capitalize ‘Black’ (and not ‘white’) (Columbia Journalism Review, June 16, 2020), Black with a capital 'B': Why it took news outlets so long to make a change that matters to so many (Kashmala Fida, CBC News, July 20, 2020, "a number of news organizations across Canada and the United States announced in June the same change in their language guidelines: to capitalize the word "Black" when referring to Black people and culture. The Globe and Mail made its announcement on June 3, followed by the CBC on June 8 and The Canadian Press the next day. In the U.S., a number of news organizations, including the Los Angeles Times, NBC, The Associated Press and the New York Times, also announced the same change to their style guides.") Beccaynr (talk) 15:43, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
I'm yet to be convinced this is anything but a North Americanism. GPinkerton (talk) 15:53, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
I was just returning to qualify my comment as such, thank you. Beccaynr (talk) 15:54, 13 February 2021 (UTC) (Although I was specifically attempting to respond to the question about the term "African American.") Beccaynr (talk) 15:57, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
That answer to Tony1's question is incorrect; "African[-]American" has not become unfashionable at all; all that's changed is an increasing tendency to capitalize "color labels" as racio-ethnic terms, when they are used (and a bigger increase in capitalizing "Black", alone, rather than all of them, though there has also been an increase in "White" and "Brown"; e.g. The Washington Post almost consistently uses the "capitalize them all in this kind of use" style, while AP has taken a leftist activism position to only capitalize "Black"). This inconsistency in approach is the very reason this discussion is open and has not been an open-and-shut matter. And, yes, it is mostly just an Americanism and a recentism. I wouldn't even call it a "North Americanism" since there's no evidence this is catching on much in Canada. At any rate, it's pretty clear that the actual point of Tony1's post was to advocate avoiding these terms altogether and using more formal language like "African American" or whatever suits the exact context.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:13, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
        • @Tony (talk) - 'African American' is not always appropriate. By way of example, many Black residents of Crown Heights, Brooklyn identify as Caribbean American, and reject the African American label. Things get even more confused when someone is of mixed Afro-Caribbean heritage. 'Black' is a better (and more accepted) descriptor in this community due to self-identity. --19:00, 21 August 2021 (UTC)Discord Ian (talk)
  • Comment - I have just edited Tignon law according to the proposed wording by SMcCandlish above, which appears to be an accurate reading of the discussion. Personally I'd prefer to deprecate "Black" altogether, and simply lowercase it throughout, per common usage. That would be a much easier change to understand and process, and would be more consistent with our general aversion of unnecessary capitalisation, but perhaps it's just my bias as a non-American shining through!  — Amakuru (talk) 12:43, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I don't like this. Go with one or the other rather than making arbitrary and pointless inconsistency. DemonDays64 (talk) 22:13, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
    • Lots of people won't like it, but we did not get a consensus for "black and white" or for "Black and White", only consensus against "Black but white". That consensus should be recorded. (And it's entirely normal for MoS discussions to not come to a conclusion to require/forbid particular wording or spelling.) Consensus can change, so we might get consensus against one or other other later. That is to say, DemonDays64, that the point of what I've drafted it is to at least prevent the even worse inconsistency of "white and Black", and given that there is no guidance in the MoS about this matter at present, this will be an improvement over the current situation, which is random chaos and people editwarring over it, despite us having already had RfCs and other discussions about it. The results of such consensus discussions need to be codified or no one will know or care about those discussions and the conclusions they have reached (so far).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:22, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I support adding guidelines about this to the MOS, because I recognize that people have different opinions on the capitalization of racial terms and I think Wikipedians deserve guidance. For what it's worth, my personal preference is to capitalize "Black" and "White." This is to treat them as demonyms, rather than to emphasize them; I agree in general that capitalizing words for emphasis is bad. Qzekrom (she/her • talk) 04:19, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
  • I'm with Qzekrom on each of these points, most relevantly of course the need for the MOS to state this explicitly. Here is some recent ugliness on my talk page from an inexperienced user who could evidently have benefited from a clear guideline. I also think that SMcCandlish's proposed language is quite thoughtful and appropriately detailed. Generalrelative (talk) 07:21, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
  • @SMcCandlish: Have you decided whether and where we should incorporate this into the MoS page? Qzekrom (she/her • talk) 03:00, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
    It's not up to me more than others. The thread below proposes an overhaul of the presently pretty mangled section where this should go (it's the result of some clumsy old merging). Barring objections, that's how I would fix up the section, and that's the section in which I would put something about this.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:13, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Is there any progress on the wording proposed above being implemented? I was directed to this discussion, after KidAd has been changing "Black" to "black" on The Falcon and the Winter Soldier with their reasoning being using "Black" isn't stated in the MOS (but as far as I can tell, neither is anything else currently about race color labels). Regardless, I agree Qzekrom that there should be something stated on the matter just so editors know what should be happening in instances like this. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 15:40, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
    @Favre1fan93: I'll pore over this one last time and maybe look for some ways to compress it, then merge it with the material in the section below and add it, since there aren't any substantive objections, and it'll go a long way to resolving some recurrent disputes. If people want to contend over some wording in it after the fact, that'll be manageable, either casually or with an RfC. But I think this has had more than sufficient discussion.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:20, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
    @SMcCandlish: Sounds good! Your wording sounds very neutral in my opinion, and unlike the RFC which I took to be a definitive yes or no on capitalization, it's worded in a way that allows either option as acceptable. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 18:01, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
    The RfC closure (technically proposal closure, as it didn't have an RfC tag) was kind of hard to parse, as it focused on what was said in the discussion as if in a vacuum, without accounting for status quo ante practice (and also incorrectly tried to frame it as an article-style content dispute that was determined only by external sources, when of course internal-guideline discussions are not that, but are consensus discussions that only use off-site sources as part of their reasoning). The salient parts, which seem to be proper closure assessment, are: 'Consensus against changing MOSCAPS to capitalize "Black" .... There was some disagreement as to ... whether the capitalization of other terms of color (mostly "White") should be considered in tandem ... there is still no consensus for supporting such a change as a rule at this time'. (That's eliding a lot of editorializing.) Taken as a whole this translates to "Black but white" (the central proposal) is rejected, "Black and White" will not be imposed as a rule, and "black but white" will not be imposed as a rule. Given that both of the latter two were already in widely accepted use on WP (with very little drama until the "Black but white" movement manufactured drama in 2020), the proposal did nothing to change that, but we'd never actually written it down.

    The closure also wrote of 'sufficient opposition [to making a hard rule for one or the other] such that the matter should not be reopened at a project-wide level until either further developments occur (i.e. more style guides adopting capital-form) or significant time has passed." So, that's basically a moratorium on relitigating it for a long time. There's also a weak suggestion that "black and white" is the default, which is actually consonant with MOS:CAPS in general, but does not take into account demonym arguments, which the closer ignored but which have dominated follow-on discussions since then, both here and at other pages.

    The "further development" that has occurred is the last two months or so of proposing the wording above and seeing if it meets with approval. It seems that it does, so I will implement it now.
     — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:48, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

This is integrated into MOS:PEOPLANG now [5], with some conforming tweaks so that this wording and the existing wording (covered in thread below) play well together.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:18, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
  •  User:SMcCandlish, I feel to see how you got "consensus against "Black but white"" (I'm citing this diff, still linked in the MOS) out of Rosguill's close of the recent RfC. I note also that many of these discussions saw heavy involvement by GPinkertion, whose attitudes on ethnicity whose (in my opinion) ethnicity-driven POV got them blocked. I also see that you yourself made a pretty blatant POV observation in this very discussion: "AP has taken a leftist activism position to only capitalize "Black"". So I have to question whether you were the right person to implement whatever came out of the RfC (and bless your heart, Rosguill, for doing all that work), and since I see no firm consensus against "Black but white" mentioned in that close at all, I am going to remove that one phrase, "it only concluded firmly against mixing styles as "Black but white"". If anyone wants to start fighting over that, they will have to do so on the basis of the RfC and its conclusion by Rosguill. (For the record, I do not accept this, to which SMcCandlish made reference ("The somewhat unclear proposal closure was refined January–April 2021") as an acceptable refinement of that lengthy RfC--if it concluded what it was supposed to conclude at all.) Drmies (talk) 20:20, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
    Hi Drmies - full disclosure, GPinkerton emailed me about this. I don't know why he picked me - I mean, we weren't buddies, and I blocked him at least once - but I said I'd take a look, and I'm not sure your comments are entirely fair. GPinkerton was combative in his editing style, and he had issues editing on middle-eastern historical subject areas, but my impression was always that he had very firm views about political/religious stuff, not ethnicity. As I remember it, his issues were about the Ba'ath party and anyone associated with them, the current regime in Turkey, that sort of thing. I don't remember him saying anything about race/ethnicity, but I might have missed something. Would you be willing to check and, if necessary, revise that comment? I think he's pretty upset about being labelled a racist, when he can't speak up for himself here. Apologies if there's something I'm missing here. Best GirthSummit (blether) 07:47, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
    User:Girth Summit, thanks--but I don't think I labeled anyone as a racist. I think the Kurdish matter, can hardly be qualified as just political--it always involves ethnicity. Similar with the Hagya Sophia shit storm from last year (there's material here, Talk:Hagia Sophia/Archive 5), and I'll summarize my position thusly: GPinkerton made POV edits and disregarded crucial guidelines because of a POV, which also involved ethnicity. That's all, really. They emailed me too, immediately, which means that for an indefinitely banned editor they are still way too closely involved if they ever want to return. But I've amended the statement above--with the caveat that no, I didn't call them a racist. Either way, the substance is what matters here, and even without that particular observation, I think my point about the subsequent "clarification" that led to SMcCandlish's change in the MOS still stands. Drmies (talk) 15:16, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
    OK Drmies, thanks for clarifying that. (If I remember correctly, I think it was a different bout of POV edit warring about the Hagia Sophia that I blocked him for last year, but I'd have to check on that.) I appreciate you didn't use the word racist, and I agree with your description of his POV editing and disregard for crucial guidelines; my impression is that it was politically, rather than ethnically driven, but you may have seen different things from me and I have faith in your judgment so I'll say no more on that.
    I didn't intend my comment to imply anything at all about your point about the MOS - I haven't read through these discussions, I have no view on that to offer. GirthSummit (blether) 15:27, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
  • I see no consensus anywhere for this: "do not mix the styles inconsistently in the same article (Black but white)". The MOS should not prohibit "Black/white", as there was no consensus in the RFC to prohibit it. The MOS section should simply state: "There is no consensus as to the capitalization of color labels; any capitalization may be used (Black/White, black/white, Black/white), and editors should not change one capitalization style to another." Levivich harass/hound 18:21, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
    MOS:ARTCON, which pre-dates all of this discussion and was in no way overturned by any of it. Failure to come to a consensus to kill old P&G doesn't make that P&G invalid, it reaffirms its validity.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:49, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
  • I also see no consensus for do not change Black to black. What I see consensus for is do not change black to Black. There's a difference. —valereee (talk) 14:11, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
    • Re "I [fail] to see how you got "consensus against 'Black but white'", etc. – Please read the entire discussions. Yes, it's complicated. The short version: The very long-running status quo is that "black and white" or "Black and White" are permissble. This is because there is no rule against either style, and there is a rule (MOS:ARTCON) to use a consistent style within an article. The no-longer-very-recent RfC, which had a confusing and perhaps confused close that took little account of what that status quo was or why, only what people were saying in their comments, was about imposing "Black but white" style. I.e., it was a proposal to overturn ARTCON. That proposal failed. Some (myself included) separately proposed in there to require "Black and White" style, and that also failed. And there was no consensus to change "Black and White" to "black and white". That leaves us, necessarily, with the status quo intact: "black and white" and "Black and White" are both permissible, while "Black but white" is not. All that was left to do was to actually write this down instead of it just remaining an unwritten tacit consensus.

      PS: Things like this (which really resolve to the WP:Policy writing is hard principle) are a good example of why closers (especially WP:NACs) should not close MoS and other WP:P&G discussions unless they are intimately familiar with the P&G material in question and what the status quo actually is. This would not be the first time that a closer produced something confusing through a kind of "treat this as if it's a vote, and in a vacuum" approach. It's also important to remember that consensus exists in what the community does and decides, whether any closer arrives to summarize it, and whether they summarize it correctly. See also WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY. There's been an alarming trend over the last 8 or so years to pretend more and more that RfC closes are something akin to ArbCom rulings. They are not. Their closes are the opinion of a single editor, and when they're confused enough they can be explicitly overturned, though more often they simply have no impact and the community continues with the actual consensus that it really has. (As one example, a closer tried to insert a "grandfather clause" that a guideline change would not apply to WP:FAs or to "old" articles, but this idea was ignored as nonsense, and the guideline was of course consistently applied regardless of page age or GA/FA icon.)
       — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:48, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

  • Support Though de-capitalising both would be slightly better in my own view, this works and I'm in favour. thorpewilliam (talk) 05:41, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

RFC: representation of consensus in current guideline

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There is consensus that yes, the current wording represents consensus of the discussion Proposed update to MOSCAPS regarding racial terms. While the close showed consensus against changing MOSCAPS to capitalize "Black" when used as a racial or ethnic descriptor, there was no consensus to specify lowercase "black", either. (non-admin closure) Tol | talk | contribs 06:42, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

The current wording in MOS:CAPS is Ethno-racial "color labels" may be given capitalized (Black and White) or lower-case (black and white); there is no consensus against what is sometimes perceived as inconsistency in the same article (Black but white). Does this represent the consensus closure of the RFC cited here: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters/Archive 32#Proposed update to MOSCAPS regarding racial terms? 2600:8800:1880:68:5604:A6FF:FE38:4B26 (talk) 23:34, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

  • No. The bolded consensus close was as follows: Consensus against changing MOSCAPS to capitalize "Black" when used as a racial or ethnic descriptor. 2600:8800:1880:68:5604:A6FF:FE38:4B26 (talk) 23:35, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes (Summoned by bot) The IP either didn't read the rest of the close or is willfully misrepresenting it to push their pet style. The RfC showed there was no consensus to require the capitalization of "Black", but somehow the IP has come to interpret that as a prohibition on doing so. The previous RfC demonstrated that the community has no consensus style and writers may follow whatever convention is reasonable in a given context in accordance with how sources capitalize the term. I recommend this be closed. — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:46, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment Notifying Rosguill, who closed the mentioned RfC.—Bagumba (talk) 06:07, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes the current wording is correct. As Wugapodes has explained, the RfC closure I conducted established a consensus against enshrining capital-B black as our MOS standard, but does not establish that we should always use lowercase-b. Capitalization of [Bb]lack can be handled as an article-level decision. I would expect that an RfC to uniformly adopt lowercase-b black would probably end in no consensus at this time. signed, Rosguill talk 13:32, 23 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes Not only is that clearly the consensus of the discussion in question, but permitting variability has been the closest thing to consensus on this contentious topic to come out of repeated discussions, both on policy talk pages and centralized discussion spaces in addition to the numerous satellite discussion on particular article talk pages. Many style guides are in a state of transition on this issue, and disagree broadly among themselves, and there is equal variability among the style sheets and preferred approaches of the various sources we may be citing in areas where such ethnonyms are utilized. Because our policy discussions have failed (unsurprisingly in this instance) to arrive at a unified approach to this issue and permit both options, the best advice that can be given is to follow WP:STYLEVAR; if there is disagreement as to which approach to utilize on a particular article, default to whatever stable version has predominated in the article's recent history. Snow let's rap 20:27, 31 May 2021 (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.

new Atlantic Charter, Northern Ireland Protocol and Brexit withdrawal agreement. Should we write charter, protocol and agreement or Charter, Protocol and Agreement?

Latest comment: 3 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

new Atlantic Charter, Northern Ireland Protocol and Brexit withdrawal agreement:

Should we write charter, protocol and agreement or Charter, Protocol and Agreement?

charter, protocol and agreement, just like university, zoo or museum. SchreiberBike | ⌨  16:04, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
This lead to some interesting edits. @SchreiberBike: Is this what you meant? Brycehughes (talk) 21:03, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
That's not quite what I meant. I should have been more clear. I would use those words in lower case when standing alone. E.g. Northern Ireland Protocol, the protocol; Harvard University, the university; Prospect Park Zoo, the zoo. For New Atlantic Charter, I think it's not yet clear whether the document signed by the leaders was the "new Atlantic Charter" or the "New Atlantic Charter", but it's definitely not the "new Atlantic charter". Keep up the good work. SchreiberBike | ⌨  21:20, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
Yes, definitely lowercase when standing alone. Deor (talk) 22:57, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Former Senator vs Former senator

Latest comment: 3 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Should it be former Senator Smith or former senator Smith?

Here are some examples I see in current Wikipedia articles:

It resulted in the nomination of former Senator Benjamin Harrison of Indiana for president... In the presidential election, Democratic former senator Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire defeated Whig General Winfield Scott...

Vice President Al Gore carried the primary in a landslide over former Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey. Republican Bob Smith won the open seat, easily defeating the Democratic nominee, former senator John A. Durkin.

Former Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee, who did not address the event, finished second.

Herbert was also the home of former senator Jack Wiebe.

The convention nominated former Senator Bob Dole from Kansas...

Former senator and Democratic nominee Henry W. Edwards was elected...

Wilson defeated the Liberal Republican and Democratic nominees, former Congressman Horace Greeley of New York and his running mate former Senator and Governor Benjamin Gratz Brown of Missouri.

Kaltenmeyer (talk) 21:40, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

As "former senator" is not a title, I follow the guidance to lowercase these when I find them. Primergrey (talk) 03:57, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Primergrey, I tend to agree. When it is used as a current job title, Senator should be capitalized, but when used as part of a description, such as "former senator", it should not be. Ganesha811 (talk) 22:31, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Should "[Mm]odel United Nations" be capitalized?

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

  You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Model United Nations § Capitalization?. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 17:08, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Personal names and place names merger complete

Latest comment: 3 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

The sections here on personal names and place names have long contained material that was good but which had nothing to do with capital letters. These were flagged for merger into WP:MOSBIO#Names and WP:MOS#Geographical items, respectively, since April 2021. Given that there were no objections or even concerns raised, I have performed these mergers, leaving behind just capitalization-specific advice here (clarified some as needed).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:17, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Cool. GoodDay (talk) 16:21, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Capitalization of degrees

Latest comment: 3 years ago16 comments8 people in discussion

@Chris the speller, I noticed your AWB run capitalizing degrees such as Bachelor of Arts. Looking into it a bit, I'm not seeing any guidance in MOS:CAPITALIZATION, there have been varied perspectives in past discussions on this talk page, and external sources seem to mostly but not universally suggest capitalization. Have there been any specific discussions about this issue, or do you view it as an application of an existing rule? I don't have a strong preference one way or the other, but I always try to be wary of the tendency to overcapitalize to make things seem more important, so if we're going to be making mass changes, some further discussion is probably warranted. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} talk 01:13, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

I have changed many more titles to lower case than to upper case, especially job titles and fields of study, but there doesn't seem to be a need for discussion where all major dictionaries capitalize, such as "Bachelor of Science". I have been switching to lower case for generic terms like "bachelor's degree", but "Bachelor of Science" is somewhat akin to "Certified Financial Planner", as it's a specific thing. Countless articles that I have changed were using uneven capitalization for people who had earned a "bachelor of arts" and also a "Master of Arts"; imposing a little consistency strikes me as a very good thing. If consensus were reached to use lower case for all degrees, even when dictionaries indicated otherwise, then I would go along with it, but for now consistency is more easily established by going with the (predominant) upper case. Chris the speller yack 04:52, 19 September 2021 (UTC)
I agree with Chris. My personal preference would be lowercase titles, but that appears to contradict most widely used style guides. Note that generic titles should not be capitalized (i.e. "master's degree" vs. "Master of Fine Arts"). pburka (talk) 20:32, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
I too support upper casing degrees (Bachelor of Science, etc.) but would also note the subject itself should be lowercase (Bachelor of Science in communications) unless it would otherwise be capped (Bachelor of Arts in English literature). -- Calidum 15:03, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
This seems reasonably close to being settled. If someone comes to complain that "Bachelor of Science" should be changed to lower case, ask them why "Manager of the Month" is capitalized 98% of the time. Calidum's statement that "the subject itself should be lowercase" is in total agreement with the text buried in MOS:IDEOLOGY that says "fields of academic study or professional practice are not capitalized". I have added guidance to the MoS in line with what Pburka said and in line with the AP style. See MOS:DEGREES. Chris the speller yack 16:13, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
Looks good; thanks for engaging the discussion and formalizing the outcome. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 17:38, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
I see no reason to capitalize degrees in normal prose; The Chicago Manual of Style notes that they are often capitalized on business cards and on promotional items, but otherwise a bachelor of arts, a master of science, etc. Doremo (talk) 12:26, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
The Chicago Manual of Style "recommends omitting periods in abbreviations of academic degrees (BA, DDS, etc.) unless they are required for reasons of tradition or consistency with, for example, a journal's established style" (16th ed., § 10.20). Doremo (talk) 15:10, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

From a quick Google search, it looks like advice varies. Often it's "bachelor's degree" lowercase but "Bachelor of Arts" or "Bachelor of Science" capped if those are the full degree names. But in other sources, they say not to cap "bachelor of arts" and such. To be consistent with WP's guideline to avoid unnecessary capitalization, we really should follow those guides that are most consistent with our own style. Dicklyon (talk) 01:37, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Traditional owners

Latest comment: 3 years ago14 comments7 people in discussion

Should the term "traditional owners", when applied to indigenous Australians, be capitalized as a mark of respect? If yes, this would presumably also be applied to "elder", "custodian", and other terms covered by the style manual regarding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of the Australian government. There's a discussion about this at Talk:Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park#Traditional owners where some editors draw an analogy to the spelling of Founding Fathers of the United States. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 09:42, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Only if reliable secondary sources commonly do it. —El Millo (talk) 18:14, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
A quick Google shows that most do these days (and all capitalise Indigenous Australians). Laterthanyouthink (talk) 22:19, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
From the first 5 search results, only 1 does. AIATSIS [6], Queensland Teachers' Union [7], Austrade [8], and Australian Law Reform Commission [9] don't. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:07, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
Google returns different results depending on location and other factors, and the usage also depends on the date of the web page and how the site SEOs are set up. When I google (going on visible excerpts), I see capitalisation on 6/8 on the first page, 9/9 on the second, and 9/10 on the third. AIATSIS's documents and pages vary on when they were created. Their document Engaging with Traditional Owners uses caps. But this is part of a bigger topic, as I have mentioned on that talk page and elsewhere. Having a quick look at my draft style guide re Indigenous Australians, the first source I looked at at random, Reconciliation in education has a section about capitalisation. It may look strange to some of our eyes, but like the terms Indigenous, Aboriginal and Welcome to Country, soon become part of ordinary Australian vocabulary and spelling. I am less interested in pushing for this particular term than discussing the whole style guide though, and have little time just at the moment, so I won't continue to comment here. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 04:21, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
  • No, per MOS:SIGCAPS. WP does not capitalize for signification, to "mark respect", in this or any other area. A large portion of MoS-related conflict is WP:Specialized-style fallacy arguments to impose such capitalization in a particular topic area because it's common among specialists within that topic. WP is not a specialist publication, but has the most general audience possible. Don't write like a specialist here (including an indigenous-rights activist, which also triggers WP:NOT#ADVOCACY and WP:NPOV policies).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:03, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
MOS:SIGCAPS is not referring to this use of caps at all, it's about randomly and inconsistently capitalising any words for emphasis. The use of initial capitals in the case of Indigenous Australians and Aboriginal Australians, for instance, is widely used in every type of source - you'd have to look very hard to find a contemporary Australian source which does not capitalise. It's nothing to do with advocacy, it's about common and accepted usage. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 05:58, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
The "consistent capitalized [use] in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources" is true for "Aboriginal Australians", but not for "traditional owners". The "as a mark of respect" argument was raised in the original discussion, and that is not supported by Wikipedia's MoS. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:21, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
As the principal author of SIGCAPS, I know precisely what it was intended to cover, and this is absolutely positively within that orbit.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:31, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
As I have said before, I am not pushing hard for capitalisation of Traditional Owners at this point in time, although I think that it is justifiable on the grounds of common usage, per my google results. The comment about mark of respect applies equally to how the capitalisation of Indigenous and Aboriginal came about (treating them as people, distinct from flora and fauna), and came to be commonly accepted. I am merely commenting at this point that traditional owners appears to be going the same way, and MOS does not appear to to have anything which covers these kinds of usages. The Canadians consult external style guides to guide their usage. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 07:44, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
Except it's not a common usage, and our standard isn't common usage anyway, but near-universal usage. WP doesn't capitalize indigenous and aboriginal either, except in terms that have effectively become proper names (Aboriginal Australians but aboriginal peoples of the Americas).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:31, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Capitalizations in headings that begin with numbers

Latest comment: 3 years ago12 comments9 people in discussion

A discussion is taking place on Talk:Nicole Kidman (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs), and there is a view that "2016" is the first word in the section heading "2016–present: resurgence and Big Little Lies", which is why "resurgence" is in lowercase. Despite this, "2004–2009: Established actress" has the "e" in "established" capitalized, presumably because the preceding item only consists of numbers. Are both of these headings proper? If not, would it be more consistent with MOS:HEADCAPS to have the "r" in "resurgence" capitalized or the rest of the section headings in the style of "2004–2009: Established actress" all in lowercase? Thank you! KyleJoantalk 08:44, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

The discussion would be better had here, since it has nothing to do with Kidman in particular. "2016–present: resurgence and Big Little Lies" is the proper style, since "resurgence" does not begin the heading. The other one should be "2004–2009: established actress". We capitalize after a colon when what follows the colon forms a complete sentence.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:16, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: Per MOS:HEADCAPS, "Capitalize the first letter of the first word". Does not state to capitalize the beginning of a heading, but rather a specific character. The year is not really a word, it's a number, and the first letter in this case would be the "E" in "Established". Since MOS:HEADINGS does not specify how to apply when dealing with a heading that begins with a numerical value, I don't think it's fair to assume it shouldn't be capitalized. I'd say that's down to consensus if there's nothing stating otherwise.
And also, may you refer me to the guideline that states We capitalize after a colon when what follows the colon forms a complete sentence? I'd appreciate it. Film Enthusiast✉ 04:23, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
Are there any examples of this? A word that isn't at the beginning being capitalized because there are only numbers before it? The WP:ONUS seems to be on whoever's proposing that be done, rather than the other way around. Do you do that in sentences? Because the same rules apply to section headings here. —El Millo (talk) 05:27, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
From MOS:COLON, When what follows the colon is also a complete sentence, start it with a capital letter, but otherwise do not capitalize after a colon except where doing so is needed for another reason, as for a proper name. Primergrey (talk) 02:11, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
If you just type a number into the search box you can see what follows, which appears to be almost always lowercase for non-proper nouns. There are exceptions, like in the rather specialized rules for chemical names. Dicklyon (talk) 17:06, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
The majority of headings on BLPs of public figures, such as actors and musicians, are constructed with the first letter of the first alphabetical word capitalized, even though the heading actually begins with a year followed by a colon. Just take a look for yourself. Not sure who or why these were created that way in the first place, but it seems like there was never opposition to it until now. I feel it's a different case when dealing with these type of headings, as their purpose is different from a regular sentence. The numbers, in this case years, are only there to reference a certain time period. I wouldn't consider them part of the actual sentence. Hence why there is a use of a colon. It's purpose is different for a BLP than for any other article, therefore it should be applied differently IMO. — Film Enthusiast✉ 18:11, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

Concerning headings/sub-headings which begin with a number (usually a year) followed by the ":" symbol? I'd go with capitalising. GoodDay (talk) 17:14, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

  • Looking through the MOS more deeply, it looks like section headings' conventions are based on the rules for article titles. The guidance on article titles uses the same "Capitalize the first letter of the first word" verbiage, which would suggest to me that "Established" and "Present" should be capitalized. But in actual practice, that is not how article titles are being styled. 2020 stock market crash and 2012 phenomenon both treat the year as the first word of the title, and this seems to be a consistent interpretation of "first word", where unless it is a proper noun (which is the vast majority), a word trailing an initial year in the article title is not capitalized, exactly as SMcCandlish is suggesting. So it seems to me that we have three alternatives here:
  1. Clarify the MOS guidance on both article titles and headings to reflect the consistent practice for articles, which is inconsistent with headings.
  2. Disentangle the MOS guidance on headings from those on article titles.
  3. Engage a full process at an MOS mainpage to change the guideline for both headings and article titles to overturn the current interpretation for article titles so that it conforms to an inconsistent interpretation in headings.
And while I personally feel like capitalization of the first word after a year looks better on headings, #1 seems like a better option to me than #3, and vastly superior to #2. VanIsaac, MPLL contWpWS 02:39, 17 October 2021 (UTC)
I believe option 1, if I understood it correctly, is currently taking place at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Clarification on capitalization in headings of BLPs beginning with numbers, if you'd like to take a look. — Film Enthusiast✉ 02:57, 17 October 2021 (UTC)
I personally view the stuff that comes after a colon as analogous to the subtitle of a work, and I think capitalization makes sense, since in referring to a title + subtitle combination (like Star Trek: The Motion Picture) subtitles usually are usually begun with a cap even if the first word is one that would not normally be capped in the middle of a title, such as a or the. I can't for the moment think of any examples of "xxxx: xxxx" headings in Wikipedia where the part before the colon is not a date; has anyone else seen any, and how are they capitalized? Deor (talk) 16:27, 17 October 2021 (UTC)
But section headings aren't titles of works, so even if they are analogous to a subtitle, they wouldn't be capitalized, given section headings use sentence case and titles of works use title case. —El Millo (talk) 00:19, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Add convention of capitalizing Go

Latest comment: 3 years ago24 comments13 people in discussion
ADDED
Per discussion below. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 15:23, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

The following discussion 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.

I'd like to propose adding a fourth bullet at MOS:GAMECAPS to include the convention of capitalizing the name of the game Go as follows (with exploratory footnote):

There are occasional, conventionalized variances, e.g.:

  • Standardized chess openings are capitalized...
    ...
  • The name of the game Go is capitalized.{{efn}}

efn Reliable sources almost always conventionally capitalize Go because of readability issues given the common English verb go. This convention is almost always followed in Go-specific sources and very commonly in other sources as well.

Please review prior discussion at the Wikiproject Go talk page. Sources on Go capitalize the name of the game due to readability issues given that the word go is a common English verb. Most articles in Wikipedia on Go follow the sources in adopting this convention as well. Occasionally, the question resurfaces and it would be helpful to include this conventional variance in the guidelines at MOS:GAMECAPS.Coastside (talk) 00:31, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Examples from reliable sources:

Searches from Google scholar articles (note that the articles capitalize the game even if the article title does not):

This convention is addressed in the Go article under etymology, which says:

In English, the name Go when used for the game is often capitalized to differentiate it from the common word "go".

Here is the explanation of the convention from the Taiwan Review referenced as a source (which capitalizes Go throughout):

Even writing about the game, at least in English can be complicated since the similarity of Japanese name Go to the English verb means that the game's name is generally capitalized despite its not being a proper name, but this convention is far from being universally adopted.

Although the convention is not "universally adopted", it is a convention followed by most sources nonetheless. It would be helpful to document this convention here at MOS:GAMECAPS in order to encourage consistency and avoid continued debate. Coastside (talk) 00:31, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

  • Support Capitalizing Go when referring to the game makes it easier for readers to understand quickly how the word is being used in the sentence. Schazjmd (talk) 00:37, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
  • Support I have been arguing in favour of this for a while now. The majority of the sources capitalise the word and more than a few of those explain the necessity of distinguishing between the name of the game and the common English verb to avoid confusion. So this is not just an affectation Reyk YO! 00:58, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
  • Support: happy to follow the lead of the WikiProject and RS on this. Small point: 'go-specific' in the footnote should be probably be capitalized. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 02:15, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
    Seeing some references to WP:SSF below, but I don't think any special pleading is happening here. Nearly all the reliable sources I can find, and I'm only looking for out-of-universe sources, are capitalizing. The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and The New Zealand Herald all capitalize, including in article with lowercase "chess" and "checkers". My support for this proposal is dependent on meeting the "consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources" standard, so if others know of multiple such sources that don't capitalize, I'd be interested to know about them. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 21:35, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
  Fixed Coastside (talk) 02:28, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Pure special pleading, no different from the arguments of some US armed forces veterans that all ranks (and many other military terms) should be capitalised because the US armed forces themselves do it. We've rejected that and we should reject this. Go is a generic term, not a proper name. It is Wikipedia house style to only capitalise proper names. No reason whatsoever for an exception here. See WP:SSF. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:07, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
Chess openings are capitalized by convention, a convention listed excplicitly at MOS:GAMECAPS, and the explanatory footnote provides the following justification:

Chess openings are usually capitalized even in non-specialist works such as newspapers and novels, and near-universally in chess-specific ones, so this meets the Wikipedia "consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources" standard.

That justification applies here as well. Regarding Wikipedia's "house style", I point you to the full sentence at MOS:Capital letters, which explains when there are conventional exceptions.

Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia.

We should be consistent not only in the application of policy but in the allowance of conventional exceptions. Coastside (talk) 20:51, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
The policy for exceptions refers to a "substantial majority of independent, reliable sources". Two dictionary references do not constitute a substantial majority of RS. A substational majority of independent, reliable sources do in fact capitalize Go. It's not universal, but it is a clear convention followed by the majority of sources, and a vast majority of Go-specific sources. Coastside (talk) 20:55, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
I admit that I do feel a bit annoyed and insulted when people declare that this can only be a wanky affectation and that's that. Reyk YO! 11:12, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
  •   Agree – it's a sensible piece of disambiguation, which is usually more in WP's interest than pedantic niggling over what other practices it might be inconsistent with. To misuse the famous Emerson quote a little, "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines". As others have observed, it is also a common practice (arguably in the spirit of WP:COMMONNAME) to capitalize "Go" in WP:RS that relate to it, particularly those published by the Go community itself. At any rate, this matches up with my experience. Archon 2488 (talk) 12:00, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
  • Support per discussion, sources, and the traditional way of presenting the game's name. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:14, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
  • Support per comments in previous discussion. Most sources do this. We should follow their example. SnowFire (talk) 02:45, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
  • Support. The game of Go is capitalized in all usage I have ever seen, including in mainstream newspaper articles and other news coverage about the still-relatively-recent computer artificial intelligence conquering of human Go players, much much later than happened for chess. I am a Go player, pretty good for an Anglo-type American, and am well-informed about it, have read widely about the game. Note, Go is the Japanese language name, and is universally capitalized. It can be referred to as Baduk or baduk (the Korean language term, and I think lower case is okay) or as Weiqi or weiqi (the Chinese language term, and here also I think lower case is okay). It would seeming jarring to me if I saw Go termed "go", though. I'm not going to bother to link to thousands of usages outside of the Go world itself. This is not "special pleading" at all. --Doncram (talk) 02:37, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment: Coastside, who opened this discussion, referred participants here to "prior discussion at the Wikiproject Go talk page", but Coastside is modest and does not quote themself from there. Others there, and me later, appreciate Coastside's explication which I quote:

Note that this discussion was debated in the Go (game) Talk page here. That discussion was originally opened in 2014, and eventually went quiet. The discussion thread was recently reopened again in 2021 at the end of the thread. Clearly this needs to be stated as a clear guideline to put the debate to rest.

I found an example of the aforementioned readability issues. This is from the article Yasuhiro Nakasone.

When asked about this in 2007, he claimed that the women were brought to a "recreation center" and made to play shogi and go with the male officers.

This is clearer when written:

... made to play shogi and Go with the male officers.

There are other games like bridge that are English words, but there aren't the same readability issues as with the common verb "go". For example, there would not be the same readability concerns with:

... made to play shogi and bridge with the male officers.

Regardless, this is not to argue for a unique Wikipedia convention. This is simply to explain why English sources on Go have adopted the convention of capitalizing "Go". It makes sense for Wikipedia to follow the convention used by these sources. [emphasis added by Doncram]

I hope seeing this will help the participants here who are not familiar with general usage (which is to capitalize). --Doncram (talk) 02:51, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
I requested (here) an uninvolved editor close this discussion, as I believe we've reached a rough consensus with a reasonable time for comment. I'd like to note there was also a rough consensus at the discussion on the WikiProject Go page, although further discussion here was required to address concern about WikiProject editors merely wanting a specialized style. Note also that as per WP:CLOSE, any uninvolved editor can close the discussion. Coastside (talk) 16:31, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Support. Clear readability win. I suppose I could have accepted Coastside's invitation and closed, but that didn't seem completely honest given that I have a clear personal view on the matter. --Trovatore (talk) 17:04, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Note: I tweaked the wording of the explanatory footnote to avoid repeitition of the phrase "almost always". Coastside (talk) 21:48, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment on the footnote: I don't think it's true that sources written for players/fans of the game are more likely to capitalize the word than sources in general, such as journalism or academic literature. If the proposal here is to be adopted, I would suggest that the footnote avoid implying (intentionally or not) that there is such a discrepancy between "Go-specific sources" and sources in general. Such a discrepancy has not been demonstrated. Better to just make one assessment of reliable sources as a whole, whatever that assessment may be. Adumbrativus (talk) 09:45, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
@Adumbrativus: I closed this per the request. You are free to change the footnote per regular WP:BRD. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 15:28, 5 November 2021 (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.

Bahamas and United Kingdom - redundant examples?

Latest comment: 2 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Reference discussion Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Capitalization of The. This type of capitalization scenario seems to be covered twice in the "Capitalization of The" section, with both "the United Kingdom" and "the Bahamas" mentioned. Should one of those be removed, and if so, which one? Heddy10 (talk) 03:12, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

The capitalization treatment of The Gambia and The Bahamas are controversial. The treatment of every other country (including the United Kingdom) is not controversial. That's why there are separate examples. This could be made clearer on the MOS page if consensus here were clearer. And consensus would be clearer if what to do were clearer. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 03:25, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

COVID

Latest comment: 2 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

This has almost certainly been discussed somewhere, but I can't immediately discover a central discussion. Do we use "COVID" or "Covid"? Once there is a consensus here, it would probably be useful to use it as an example on the project page, given the frequency with which it appears in articles. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:46, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

The WHO and medical publications (judging from PubMed) appear to consistently use COVID. American news sources appear to vary between COVID and Covid, but the American CDC seems to consistently use COVID. British news sources appear to favor Covid (like BrE Nasa, Nato, etc.), but the British NHS and UK government seem to consistently use COVID. All in all, it seems that medical/official sources favor COVID. Doremo (talk) 10:34, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
Certainly "COVID" over "Covid", currently. There have been several discussions on Talk pages of articles about the disease and virus and on related Wikiproject pages. In fact, I think the current preference on Wikipedia is "COVID-19". I brought up "Covid" as a possibility at Talk:COVID-19/Archive 14#Requested move 16 September 2020, but that was completely ignored. Wikipedia seems to get a bit more formal than the general public when it comes to medical-related topics. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 20:49, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

RfC on capitalization of buildings

Latest comment: 2 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

There is an RfC going on on whether the names of two buildings, the South Houses and North Houses at Caltech, should be capitalized. The question is whether these names are proper nouns, and whether the amount of sources capitalizing them is a "substantial majority". Your comments and !votes are appreciated. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 03:44, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Capitalization of Chinese place-names

Latest comment: 2 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

I've started a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/China-_and_Chinese-related_articles#Chinese_placenames regarding, well, Chinese placenames. One of the issues is capitalization. Please comment on that page regarding articles like Zhenxing District and Hedong Township, Dayu County. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 21:32, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

That discussion petered out after 27 November, when I suggested downcasing district and such where used. We might need a more focused discussion on just that question (or an RM). But I'm still finishing up the Southeast Asia ones, so not ready to dive into that. Dicklyon (talk) 18:42, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
The Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand) provinces and districts have all been lowercased, per general consensus and typical source usage. Should we open up this China discussion again? Dicklyon (talk) 05:01, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Use of initial caps in translations of place names

Latest comment: 2 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion

What guidance is there in Wikipedia (I have failed to find any but that's not to say it's not there!) as to the use of initial upper case letters for a descriptive translation of a place name? I might randomly use an example from Welsh; a watercourse by the name of of 'Nant y Llyn' - there are many but one such rises on the western slopes of Plynlimon in mid Wales. In standard fashion, this would translate as 'stream of the lake' though that collection of English words does not function as a place-name, simply an aid to understanding what the Welsh name is signifying for the English reader. I have always avoided writing the translation such that it appears to be a name ('Stream of the Lake' in this example) but others take a different view. I would not wish to see, indeed it is not appropriate, for Wikipedia to come up with English versions of names composed in other languages, if they are not already referenced though giving the reader an understanding of the place name elements is fine - they will often be referenced in toponymic dictionaries. Of course if the feature regularly appeared in books or on maps with an English name too, one would record that. Any existing guidance or else thoughts on the topic? thanks Geopersona (talk) 20:08, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

It should depend whether the English is used as a simple gloss (lower case) or a name (upper case), which will vary by individual name. For example: "Llyn y Fan Fach (literally, 'lake of the small hill') is a lake ..."; "Llyn Talyllychau Uchaf (or Upper Talley Lake) is a lake ..." / "Upper Talley Lake (Welsh: Llyn Talyllychau Uchaf) is a lake ..." Doremo (talk) 03:51, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
Of course if we can find reliable sources that discuss the subject in English, we should look at whether they treat a term as a proper name or not. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 07:25, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
@Doremo - Ah, 'gloss', that's the term I was reaching for but failing to recall! Yes, we're all on the same page here. Geopersona (talk) 18:01, 9 November 2021 (UTC)
In the case of Southeast Asia provinces and districts, we decided to stick with lowercase "province" and "district", for Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand at least, where sources use those descriptive translations and usually use lowercase. I agree with Doremo that it's a sort of gloss vs name question, and should be informed via sources. If sources show caps are optional, we default to lowercase. Dicklyon (talk) 05:05, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
Ultimately, it comes down to determining whether something like "province" or "district" is part of a particular name (proper noun phrase). English-language sources will likely vary for some of these because of uncertainty based on the source language: some languages (like German) will capitalize noun descriptors that are not part of a name (e.g., Wiener Gegend 'the Vienna area'), and some languages (like Slovene) will not capitalize noun descriptors that are part of a name (e.g., Julijska krajina 'the Julian March'), and this may be reflected correctly or incorrectly in sources translated into English. And, of course, for some source languages (Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, etc.) capitalization is irrelevant. Doremo (talk) 06:15, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Capitalisation of moon and sun

Latest comment: 2 years ago8 comments5 people in discussion

Just noticed that MOS:CAPS advises that Moon and Sun should be capitalised, but that seems to run counter to common usage, at least in book sources. See an ngram where the lower-case version exceeds the proper name version by a substantial margin. The names of these two bodies are clearly treated differently from other celestial bodies such as Mars, Jupiter, Milky Way etc, and I'm curious as to why we have advice to capitalise them when the world at large does not, given that we in general only treat things as proper names when a substantial majority of sources capitalise? Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 23:23, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

The ngram doesn't distinguish context - whether we are talking about a bright shiny thing in the sky or as celestial body. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:05, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
That's true, but it seems unlikely that these sources, when mentioning "the moon" and "the sun", are really so often not talking about the moon and the sun. Popcornfud (talk) 00:18, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
One would need to look at a sample set or sets (say one or two particular years) and determine the context and capitalisation for each hit in that year. I had a brief look. Yes, there are those that discuss the celestial body, but others on religion, history and poetry, where it is more about the bright shiny thing. One also needs to realise that title case usages (ie in titles) are not distinguished from running text so that caps will tend to be over-represented. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:57, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
Two things I'm not understanding:
1: I could be way off, but I was under the impression that the argument for capping sun/moon came when distinguishing between the sun and moon and the moons and suns of other planets/solar systems/etc. In that sense, I'm not understanding the difference between "the celestial body" and "the bright shiny thing" here.
2: title case usages (ie in titles) are not distinguished from running text so that caps will tend to be over-represented. Wouldn't this be further evidence that the capped forms are not used as much? Popcornfud (talk) 01:49, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
Popcornfud, the distinction being made by the guidance is whether they are being referred to as the bright shiny things in the sky versus as a celestial body in an astronomical sense. To the second point, I am not opposing the op but making neutral observations. One such observation is that any proposed change to this section (there have been some over time) usually end in a shit fight. But go ahead, knock your socks off. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:12, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
I agree with Amakuru that in WP, sun, moon, universe, and solar system are generally over-capitalized, relative to outside usage and outside style guides. The attempt to say cap them only in astronomical context is very hard for people to even interpret. But, as C157 points out, we've been over this enough times to be wary of re-opening that can of worms. Dicklyon (talk) 05:11, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

This might be easier for folks to understand with examples of when to cap or not to cap, since this is very abstract and difficult to describe on its own... A. The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might B. The star at the bed centre of our solar system, the Sun, is 93 million miles from the Earth. C. The moon was shining sulkily, Because, she thought, the sun... D. Neil Armstrong was the first man to step foot on the Moon. (Despite the personification of the sun and moon in those examples - when mentioning them as the discs in the sky = not capped. but objects in space = capped. 2D verses 3D is another way you can think of it. As seen by a human on Earth, in 2D, don't cap; as it actually exists in space, capped). 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:25D7:83BA:434:F008 (talk) 01:26, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Caps in tooltips

Latest comment: 2 years ago47 comments6 people in discussion

Template:tooltip, and its relative Template:abbr, is sometimes used to make definitions hover above abbreviations on mouseover. Should those "meanings" that pop up be in Title Case, Sentence case, or lowercase? Or if various are OK, how might one decide which is best? Should MOS say something about it? For example, SR, SR, or SR. Dicklyon (talk) 04:27, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't see how these would be any different from any other case (uses in captions and table headings etc) to make it an exception to sentence case - so "Strike rate". However, the tool tip is a poor substitute for a table legend and MOS:ACRO1STUSE applies but IMHO it is still a poor choice. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:56, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
Of those it looks cleaner if they are the same case but all lower case could work. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:53, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
What do mean, "are the same case"? Are you arguing for Title Case? Dicklyon (talk) 16:45, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
What I mean is that the tool tip should be "Win–Loss" or "win–loss". Not Win–loss which comes across as quite odd in charts or tips. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:08, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
Several people have said that "Win–loss" looks odd to them, but it looks completely normal to me. SchreiberBike | ⌨  16:03, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
Looks pretty normal to me, too. Dicklyon (talk) 02:24, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
Yep. It would only "look odd" on a site that did not use sentence case for table headers.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:11, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
What would seem to be common sense to me would be that the text under the tool tip should be capitalized the way the words would be if they were not abbreviated. So, if the text was not abbreviated, what words would be used and how would they be capitalized? Those words should be seen when mousing over the abbreviation. SchreiberBike | ⌨  04:25, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
SchreiberBike, if we confine this to abbreviations, (see Wikipedia:Tooltips for other uses), are you saying that it should appear in "dictionary case" (ie the way it would be presented in a dictionary heading of say, the OED)? How then, do we handle the Template:Tooltip, where it is used to show a link in another section or article and the section is "naturally" in sentence case (eg KO) - noting that the hover function over links shows the article title in the case displayed in the target page? If you are advocating "dictionary case" then it goes against advice elsewhere that would advocate sentence case. Not arguing against you, but just saying that if it should be "dictionary case", then it should say so somewhere. Cinderella157 (talk) 05:08, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
Right, "the way the words would be if they were not abbreviated" in Wikipedia would rule out title case, but could still be sentence case or not. I guess "dictionary case" means not sentence case, though that's not a term I'm used to in WP. I agree it might be good to say somewhere. The examples at the tooltip doc are mostly "dictionary case", but not all. Dicklyon (talk) 05:12, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
Dicklyon, "dictionary case" is a term I coined for the discussion. A dictionary uses running headings for each word heading (ie, the word in bold text and the definition runs-on from that) word entries in a dictionary are in lowercase except if the word is normally capitalised (ie a proper noun). It is how a word would normally appear mid sentence. Sorry if that wasn't clear enough or still isn't. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:00, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
@Cinderella157 and Dicklyon: I'll just give some examples.
Using the abbreviation in the middle of a sentence, I'd write:
This was measured at {{abbr|MSLP|mean sea level pressure}}.
giving:
This was measured at MSLP.
or using the tool tip at the beginning of the sentence write:
{{abbr|MSLP|Mean sea level pressure}} is the standard for measurement.
with the first letter capitalized.
giving:
MSLP is the standard for measurement.
The examples at Template:Tooltip and Template:Abbr of {{abbr|MSLP|Mean Sea Level Pressure}} seem wrong to me. I don't think we'd use title case unless it's a title of a work. The example above combining {{abbr}} with a link (KO) is new to me. When I mouseover that, I see the preview of Knockout. SchreiberBike | ⌨  05:33, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

SchreiberBike, you are saying that the caps used are context related (where in a sentence the abbreviation occurs). We use the casing as if the abbreviation was replaced with the term in-full in that particular instance/context. That makes reasonable sense. The question has arisen from how it would appear when the abbreviation is used in a table (ie "SR" appears alone in a column heading). In such a context, wouldn't we normally apply sentence case and write it in-full as "Strike rate"? Cinderella157 (talk) 06:03, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

@Cinderella157: Yep, that's what I was thinking. If there were room in the cell of the table, we'd write "Strike rate", but space is short so we abbreviate. Abbreviations are often capitalized, so we write "SR". With an {{abbr}} template, we'd write {{abbr|SR|Strike rate}} giving "SR". If there was a Wikipedia article (perhaps Strike rate (tennis)) about the meaning of strike rate in tennis, on first use, we might link in the form SR. SchreiberBike | ⌨  06:12, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
SchreiberBike, for the specific case, we are playing from the same page. If we are going with a context related capping generally, then it should probably be recorded somewhere? Perhaps a mod to MOS:CAPS under abbreviations? Cinderella157 (talk) 06:29, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
@Cinderella157 and Dicklyon: I don't see an obvious place to shoehorn it into MOS:CAPS, but it might fit at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Abbreviations. The {{abbr}} template and mouseovers are mentioned there. I'd suggest working out a proposed text in a sandbox, then proposing it at the MOS:ABBR. How does that sound? SchreiberBike | ⌨  16:31, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
t would probably naturally fit at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Expanded forms of abbreviations. Thoughts on this? Cinderella157 (talk) 01:05, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
That's under Acronyms, but the heading could change to Acronyms and abbreviations. It does say "Do not apply initial capitals in a full term that is a common-noun phrase, just because capitals are used in its abbreviation" and we could add something about the {{abbr}} template with similar language.
Maybe we could change the above to something like:

In regular text or in a {{abbr}} template, do not apply capitals to a common noun just because capitals are used in the abbreviation.

There's some thoughts.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  01:58, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Tooltips (per MOS:ACRO1STUSE) are generally limited to tables and like with limited space. See also MOS:NOTOOLTIPS. Consequently, I was thinking a little differently. Will get back with something. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:42, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

SchreiberBike,Dicklyon: Please see proposal (actually a choice of 2) at User:Cinderella157/sandbox 7 the only change I am proposing is after the "Add" otherwise the preceding text is unaltered ATM. I must admit that on some further thought, I am warming to what is essentially a "dictionary case" option (ie the first of my options) but I can live with either. Cinderella157 (talk) 05:39, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Those seem like plausible options. Certainly not title case. Dicklyon (talk) 02:48, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

SchreiberBike,Dicklyon: Amended MOS:CAPS (IAW the first option), adding the following text: In cases such as table headings and infoboxes with limited space, the abbreviation template may be used to provide a mouse-over tooltip to expand the term. Capitalize the expanded form as if it were in parentheses following the abbreviation. This will mean some overcapping to fix. Cinderella157 (talk) 09:58, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

That will mean a lot of overcapping to fix. Most tooltips I've seen are sentence case. We should get more input on whether people are comfortable moving that way. Dicklyon (talk) 15:25, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
I asked tennis folk at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennis#Possible way forward. Dicklyon (talk) 15:32, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

I find these 22 templates that have tooltip text starting with a capital letter (each needs to be looked at carefully, as some of these will be proper names or complete sentences). I'll go through and fix if there's consensus to go this way (and there will also be a few thousand articles, which I can start on if people want). Dicklyon (talk) 15:56, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

I can live with either sentence case or dictionary case but title case is right out and SchreiberBike's proposal, while not unsound is probably too complicated. I understand that title case is attractive because it is probably easier to retro impliment. There are rational cases to be made for both sentence case and dictionary case. The tooltip is just like a caption and therefore we would use sentence case; or, the tooltip is functioning just like the patenthetic expansion of the full term that we would use in prose therefore we use dictionary case. It is a case of settling on which case. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:57, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I can live with either, too, and am not really that keen to settle the question, since the work to implement it would appear to be very complicated and labor intensive (not subject to much automatic help). Within a limited area (e.g. tennis) it's not too hard, because there are a fixed finite set of things other than names to fix. I've volunteered to do it whichever way the tennis project prefers, if they ever get around to deciding. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennis#Possible way forward. Three options really: 1. leave sentence case; 2. change to dictionary case; 3. remove tooltips. Nobody there wants title case, except for Win–Loss; the Strike Rate thing was a red herring, since the editor who reverted my fix to sentence case says they think title case is wrong, and sentence case is wrong, too, and just want to decide between dictionary case and no tooltip; but mostly the project uses sentence case. Dicklyon (talk) 03:26, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
I've been away from a regular internet access for a while. I think best would be sentence case or dictionary case depending on whether the words being abbreviated start with a capital letter or not, but that would be difficult to implement with any automation. Alternatively, a reasonable case can be made for either dictionary case or sentence case. I'd chose dictionary case because Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization (option 1 at User:Cinderella157/sandbox 7) but sentence case would be ok too.
This will also require changing the heading from ==Acronyms== to ==Acronyms and abbreviations==. And Template:Abbr/doc will need to be updated. SchreiberBike | ⌨  03:36, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Checking where the consensus lies? There is a clear consensus against title case. Cinderella157 and Dicklyon would support either sentence case or dictionary case (as explained above) with no particular preference for either. SchreiberBike would express a slight preference for dictionary case over sentence case per avoiding unnecessary caps. A reasonable case can be made for either choice within the guidance provide by WP:MOS. SMcCandlish and Fyunck(click) do you have any preference and rational to support a preference? Cinderella157 (talk) 04:09, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I think I had stated it before. In a tool tip, "win–loss" works just fine... although as others have stated, if there is a key that explains things I would dump the tool tip altogether. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:04, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
I agree. "Win–loss" also works just fine, but some editors want to avoid the case mismatch between parallel terms, so we won't go there (in tennis, at least). On table headings, however, which are supposed to be in sentence case, it's unavoidable. The original question motivated by the revert of "Strike rate" to "Strike Rate" was a bit of a red herring, probably more about that "Win–loss" issue, since the same editor agreed that title case was not right. In tennis, it looks like we'll just get rid of tooltips, so don't have to answer this question uniformly. At this point, I don't see a need for a style preference between sentence case and dictionary case, but consistency within articles, or consistency with context, would still be a good thing. I still have a few test edits to revert, where I changed to dictionary case, and I'll see if there's any title case in there. Dicklyon (talk) 14:31, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
Based on my sampling (see below), if I was to pick one it would definitely be sentence case; that would make it much easier to move toward consistency. Dicklyon (talk) 15:53, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
Use sentence case like we do with everything else. KISS. There is nothing magically special about tooltips or the string "win/loss". The purpose of MoS is ensuring consistency and avoiding strife, not engaging in strife over nothing nor making up random pointless exceptions to consistency, out of nowhere.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:05, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

In the spirit of arriving at a consensus and because, as DL reports, sentence case would appear to be the most consistent use. I am prepared to support sentence case. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:51, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Go sentence case! I don't care that much, but I'm willing to pretend to be enthusiastic in order to move forward. Done is beautiful. SchreiberBike | ⌨  05:05, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
That does seem to be the emerging consensus (and common practice). I notified Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine in case they care, since a couple of their templates showed up in the ones I found using dictionary case. Dicklyon (talk) 02:42, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Current tooltip capping practice

What's "out there" currently is mixed, but mostly sentence case and some inconsistent mixtures. Here's a sample from Template space (not necessarily unbiased); except for the sentence case ones, they mostly came from the test edits I reverted, mostly back to sentence case; I got no preferences expressed on any of the test edits:

Title Case:

Mixed mess; mostly capping letters used in the abbreviations, but some others, too. (e.g. "Abbr|PF|Points For (Total points scored)"):

Sentence case; these are most common:

Dictionary case, relatively rare:

and quite a few with one or two dictionary case abbr tips among others sentence case:

Dicklyon (talk) 15:48, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Caps in headers that start with numbers

Latest comment: 2 years ago15 comments8 people in discussion

I can't find whether there's a guideline about titles and headings that start with numbers, as to whether to cap the first non-number word. E.g. in a heading like ==19th Century==, so we cap century, or use ==19th century== like in sentences? Dicklyon (talk) 18:14, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm annoyed enough, that we use "Vice president" & "Prime minister" etc, as section/sub-section headings. GoodDay (talk) 19:17, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
I'm annoyed enough that you never bring anything but negativity to style discussions. But do I go around broadcasting it? Well, maybe today I do. Dicklyon (talk) 00:05, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
Take your foot off the lower-casing pedal for a while. Let somebody else take up that task. GoodDay (talk) 00:08, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
Agree. "Vice president" and "Prime minister" looks idiotic. Or like something you would expect to see written by an 8-year-old with their phone's autocap setting turned on. 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:4D69:F0F8:A0CA:5BC (talk) 19:22, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
Per MOS:HEADINGS, section headings are treated as normal sentences, using sentence case, so in that example "century" would be lowercase. —El Millo (talk) 19:52, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
I know we use sentence case. But there are some contexts where a number doesn't count as the first word (e.g. in chemical names I know they have this convention). I haven't found anything else about this one way or the other. Dicklyon (talk) 00:05, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
But there are some contexts where a number doesn't count as the first word — Please link and/or quote the specific MOS guideline(s) that lists, describes or mentions these contexts, so that we can see if there's anything that could be interpreted as including xxth century. Mitch Ames (talk) 02:19, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
I can't find such a thing (other than for chemical names at Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(chemistry)#Capitalization_of_elements_and_compounds). That's why I came here to ask if anyone knows whether we have such a thing (see how I started above with "I can't find whether..."). I was set to downcase Century in some headings, but had this feeling that I ought to ask first, somehow. Dicklyon (talk) 04:33, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
Even Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(chemistry)#Capitalization_of_elements_and_compounds doesn't say or imply that "a number doesn't count as the first word" - it says the symbol is always capitalised, independently of its position in a sentence (including the case where it follows a number because it's an isotope, eg "14C"). Mitch Ames (talk) 05:53, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
Also "we use 2-Aminoethanol at the start of a sentence and 2-aminoethanol if not at the start of a sentence". Dicklyon (talk) 07:18, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
That seems odd to me but I guess I'm unfamiliar with the conventions of chemistry. The mathematics articles that I'm familiar with follow the convention that even for compound words starting with a digit, capitalization is a no-op because it's the digit that would change case and that makes no visible difference. (One could I suppose use a combination of text figures and upright figures but I've never seen that.) For instance, 1-planar graph has sentences beginning "1-planar", not "1-Planar", and the same is true for the references I can find that have that phrase at the start of a sentence. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:37, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
It seemed odd to me when I first tripped over it, too. Apparently I can expect to not see such in other fields or contexts. Dicklyon (talk) 15:57, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
For matters on chemistry, we tend to defer to the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry in much the way we tend to defer to the The International System of Units wrt metric measure and units. Might be an oddity and an acknowledged exception to the more general "rule" but it is what it is. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:27, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
Do not capitalize the first non-number word. There's no style guide on earth that recommends doing that. But we should avoid starting sentences with numerals, lowercase letters, symbols, and anything else other than a capital letter when practical to do so, because it's unclear to the reader that a new sentence has started and it looks like some kind of error. Never make the reader read twice and scratch their head if it can be avoided.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:06, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Capitalization of the terms 'Neoplatonic', 'Neoplatonism', 'Neoplatonist' and 'Neopythagorean'.

Latest comment: 2 years ago7 comments4 people in discussion

Hi,


DON'T WORRY ABOUT THIS POST, I NOW LIKE THE LOWERCASE LOOK.


It's so different from scholarship and makes the text easier to read.


I am not sure if I can delete this post so I have included the above note so people don't have to spend any time on this topic.


Could we please capitalize the terms 'Neoplatonic', 'Neoplatonism', 'Neoplatonist' and 'Neopythagorean'.

This conforms to 20th and 21st century authoritative scholarship.

For capitalization of the terms 'Neoplatonic', 'Neoplatonism', 'Neoplatonist', see the authoritative scholarship:


NOTE: IN ALL THE TEXTS BELOW, IN THE BODY OF THE TEXT, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, ALWAYS CAPITALIZES EVERY INSTANCE OF THE TERMS 'Neoplatonic', 'Neoplatonism' AND 'Neoplatonist'


  • Nikulin 2019 Neoplatonism In Late Antiquity,
  • Mariev 2017 Byzantine Perspectives on Neoplatonism,
  • Remes & Slaveva-Griffin 2014 The Routledge Handbook of Neoplatonism,
  • Remes 2008 Neoplatonism,
  • Dillon & Gerson 2004 Neoplatonic Philosophy. Introductory Readings,
  • Lloyd 1998 1990 The Anatomy of Neoplatonism
  • Gersh 1986 Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism the Latin Tradition Vols. 1 & 2;
  • Gerson 2004 What is Platonism,
  • Sorabji 2005 The Philosophy of the Commentators 200-600 AD,
  • Harrington 2004 Sacred Place in Early Medieval Neoplatonism,
  • Harris 1981 Neoplatonism and Indian Thought,
  • Mariev 2017 Byzantine Perspectives on Neoplatonism
  • Merlan 1968 [1953] From Platonism To Neoplatonism
  • Wallis 1992 Neoplatonism and Gnosticism
  • Ahbel-Rappe 2010 Damascius’ Problems and Solutions Concerning First Principles
  • MacKenna 1956 Plotinus The Enneads
  • O’Neill 1971 Proclus Alcibiades I
  • Baltzly 2007, 2009 and 2013 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus Vols. 3, 4 and 5
  • Calma 2020 Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes Vol. 2


For capitalization of the term 'Neopythagorean', see the running, or body-text in the authoritative scholarship:


  • Remes & Slaveva-Griffin 2014 The Routledge Handbook of Neoplatonism,
  • Remes 2008 Neoplatonism,
  • Gersh 1986 Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism the Latin Tradition Vols. 1 & 2,
  • Jackson Lycos & Tarrant 1998 Olympiodorus Commentary on Plato’s Gorgias,
  • Tarrant 2007 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus Vol. 1,
  • Morrow 1992 1970 Proclus A Commentary on the First Book of Euclid's Elements,
  • Runia & Share 2008 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus Vol. 2,
  • d’Hoine & Martijn 2017 All from One, A Guide To Proclus


And others.


Regards

Daryl Prasad

Darylprasad (talk) 20:18, 1 April 2022 (UTC)


    • Daryl, the examples you give are all titles of books and scholarly papers - which are written in “Title Case” (where nearly every word is capitalized). WP, however, uses “Sentence case” (where most words are not capitalized). So… could you give us some examples of how the terms you are concerned about are written in running text (ie how would they be capitalized within a normal sentence?) Blueboar (talk) 20:56, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
      Hi Blueboar,
      Here are six examples you requested of the capitalized terms 'Neoplatonic', 'Neoplatonism', and 'Neoplatonist' in body text, or running text. I have a further 7821 examples in 181 books of authoritative scholarship in Art, Literature, History and Philosophy in my digital library:
      "...which plays a prominent role in Neoplatonism." Nikulin 2019 Neoplatonism In Late Antiquity p. 7
      "...who transposed Neoplatonic teachings into a Christian context." Mariev 2017 Byzantine Perspectives on Neoplatonism p. 2
      "...could bring you to the pagan Neoplatonist ideal of mystical union..." Remes & Slaveva-Griffin 2014 The Routledge Handbook of Neoplatonism p. 38
      "...contemporary physics, Neoplatonism treats matter as inert and without any properties of its own," Remes 2008 Neoplatonism p. viii
      "...several features of the Neoplatonic approach to Plato." Dillon & Gerson 2004 Neoplatonic Philosophy. Introductory Readings p. xv
      "...was not repeated by any Neoplatonist known to us on this subject." Lloyd 1998 1990 The Anatomy of Neoplatonism p. 23
      Regards
      Daryl Prasad
      Darylprasad (talk) 23:46, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

This is substantively the same topic that I brought up here over a year ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters/Archive_33#Ancient_Greek_philosophy_and_MOS:DOCTCAPS . By long convention in the field the names of ancient Greek philosophies have been capitalized. Even my spell-checker constantly reminds me to "correct" this when I'm writing for Wikipedia. Teishin (talk) 12:09, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

The terms platonic, platonist, platonism, aristotelianism, stoicism, stoic, peripatetic, middle platonism, gnostic and gnosticim

Hi


Currently I am working on the article 'Neoplatonism' and according to:


Wikipedia:manual of Style/capital Letters:


"Names of ORGANIZED RELIGIONS (as well as OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZED sects), whether as a noun or an adjective, and their adherents start with a capital letter.


This means that the terms:


platonic, platonist, platonism, aristotelianism, stoicism, stoic, peripatetic, middle platonism, gnostic, gnosticim, neoplatonic, neoplatonism, neoplatonist and neopythagorean


and the like and all other non-organized religions and non-officially recognized sects all have to be in lower-case.


This post is not a question, it is alerting editors to the Wikipedia Style-Guide rules I am following.


It took me a while to get used to it, but now I kind of like it. Seriously. It's so different from scholarship and makes it easier to read the text.


You can ignore my previous post requesting to capitalize the words neoplatonic, neoplatonism, neoplatonist and neopythagorean.


Have a lovely day.


Thanks

Daryl Prasad

Darylprasad (talk) 16:51, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

@Darylprasad: Have you read the last paragraph of MOS:ISMCAPS, which says, "Doctrines, ideologies, philosophies, theologies, theories, movements, methods, processes, systems or 'schools' of thought and practice, and fields of academic study or professional practice are not capitalized, unless the name derives from a proper name" (my emphasis), and "Nevertheless, watch for idiom, especially a usage that has become disconnected from the original doctrinal/systemic referent and is often lower-cased in sources (in which case, do not capitalize): Platonic idealism but a platonic relationship"? Words like Platonism and Aristotelianism are derived from proper names and should be capitalized. Also Stoic in the philosophical sense is conventionally capitalized to distinguish it from stoic in the general "impassive" sense. Please don't go around changing capitalization in articles unless you are sure that what you're doing is in accordance with the Manual of Style. Deor (talk) 17:23, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
Hi
Thanks for that
I am learning the intricacies of the style guide.
Regards
Daryl Prasad Darylprasad (talk) 17:45, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
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