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Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#rfc 05BA6F2

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Besieged

I found a few hundred articles starting with "The Siege of X", and have been fixing them to "The siege of X" after checking each one to make sure it's not consistently capitalized in sources. A bunch of these I had fixed before, and a couple of editors recently went on a re-capitalizing spree, so I used revert and undo where I could. Another bunch were new articles, created in the last few months. I presume a lot of editors just like to copy the sentence-case title into the lead, capping even when it's not in sentence-initial position (and in a few cases, the edit summary essentially verified that). Perhaps some of them think these are proper names, in spite of typically lowercase uses in sources. I've still got about a hundred to fix – who knew there so many sieges? And I wonder if this over-capitalizing pattern is unique to sieges, or whether there are other groups of non-proper-name titles with similar issues. Dicklyon (talk) 02:36, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

:Best to open an RM for those pages. If the result is "lower case"? then you change the intros. GoodDay (talk) 02:52, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

::Why open an RM to get consensus to change the lead? Primergrey (talk) 02:56, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

:::Best to change the page title, first. GoodDay (talk) 02:57, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

::::The page titles are already properly in sentence case, e.g. Siege of Kampili. Dicklyon (talk) 03:19, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

:::::Difficult as one would need to add "The" to the article titles, to lowercase "Siege" in the article titles. Lower casing intros of military pages? tricky, but I'll support it. GoodDay (talk) 03:28, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

::::::Right, no "The" in titles, but when the lead starts with "The X" we need to look at whether X needs to be capitalized or not; not military specific, just that "Siege of ..." is one I see a lot. Dicklyon (talk) 16:29, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

:::::::Cool. GoodDay (talk) 16:33, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I just fixed a few dozen more of these. The idea that these are proper names came up explicitly in [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Siege_of_Boston&diff=prev&oldid=1260153361 at least one], but mostly they're just not paying attention to what to do with an article title in sentence context (including some contexts I hadn't searched for before). Dicklyon (talk) 06:27, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

I just fixed about 100 more of these. Lots of new articles, and lots of knee-jerk capitalization, including at least one edit summary saying "match title", which makes no sense in non-sentence-initial position. Dicklyon (talk) 06:14, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Bermicourt's January retirement message

I would suggest that the lowercase-crew read {{u|Bermicourt}}'s retirement message from January 2024. Educational and to-the-point (and sad to lose such a talented editor). Randy Kryn (talk) 12:31, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

:It is indeed sad. He felt that following Wikipedia's house style is not "best practice", and he quit over that. I hope you won't do the same for the same reason, Randy. Dicklyon (talk) 03:08, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

::Not how I read it. Excessive use of lowercasing throughout the encyclopedia has been criticized for many years, and to lowercase when uppercasing is by far the common and most familiar form in English (say 60% uppercase to 40% lower) disregards the common name and creates this type of backlash and extreme editor reaction. Wikipedia's "house style" changes familiar names into unfamiliar forms. 60-40 should indeed prevail on the side of the 60 except in unusual and obviously incorrect circumstances. Randy Kryn (talk) 09:25, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

:::Excessive use of uppercasing throughout the encyclopedia has been criticized for many years. Dicklyon (talk) 00:52, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

::::As has Wikipedia's take on what constitutes a proper name, which has received fair criticism. There's been plenty of mistakes made in downcasing proper names, and efforts have often been taken far enough to leave a bad taste in people's mouths. Our "house style" has veered too far towards lowercasing proper names, to the encyclopedia's detriment. I understand the policy, no I don't have a better proposal for the wording of it to make it more in line with reality. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:28, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

:::::I'd be interested in hearing what you think were some mistakes. Dicklyon (talk) 18:21, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

:::The MOS reads {{tq|consistently capitalized in a substantial majority|q=yes}}, while 60-40 is just a majority. —Bagumba (talk) 02:55, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

::::But how would you distinguish 60:40 from 40:60, or 55:45 from 45:55? I think that's where any proposal to use just a (simple) majority instead of a "substantial majority" would fall short. Counting votes is not so hard if you know exactly who's allowed to vote and everybody is allowed just one vote, but neither of these conditions holds when evaluating usage in reliable sources, plus it's realistically simply impossible to know which ones you missed, so any counting result can only be a very, very rough estimation. Gawaon (talk) 08:32, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

:::Criticised by whom? Tony (talk) 09:42, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

  • Bermicourt's message says, in part, "This may seem a minor issue, but it is clearly not so in the eyes of the style 'champions'". Who is the style "champion" here? The person editing in line with a house style, or the person who will only participate under their own ideal conditions? When I have volunteered for Habitat, there is invariably somebody with tons of relevant experience and know-how who just can't bring themselves to collaborate in the necessary fashion. They know what the "best way" is, and they can't differentiate between being told "our way is different" from "you are wrong". Primergrey (talk) 01:32, 20 January 2025 (UTC) Primergrey (talk) 01:32, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

:Wikipedia ebbs & flows. If at the moment the winds are blowing lowercase, someday they'll go back to blowing uppercase. GoodDay (talk) 06:06, 20 January 2025 (UTC)

::And when they do, consensus will reflect it. Although it's a bit difficult to reasonably imagine people deciding that texting is too convenient and creating a social media frenzy for quills and ink. Primergrey (talk) 04:20, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

:::What? Hey man im josh (talk) 15:20, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

::::I like it, whatever it means. Could visualize a comedy skit. What would be nice is if people under a certain age (80?) could learn to write cursive, and a frenzy for quills and ink could do that. As for ink, one of my favorite articles is Syng inkstand, an item like you'd find it Warehouse 13 or "the library". Randy Kryn (talk) 15:35, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

:Bermicourt is right. The utter navel-gazing from the "lowercase at all costs" brigade does a disservice to our readers. Our house style should not be supplanting or superseding widely adopted grammatical, linguistic, or organizational standards. ⇒SWATJester Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat! 01:08, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

::There are two sides to every coin. The observations made could equally be stated conversely though I would refrain from the pejorative characterisations. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:08, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

adding street signs

I added it specifically because of the street signs in Crossbuck being written in all caps. Kingturtle = (talk) 02:48, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

:Your changes at Crossbuck look good to me. If someone objects to them, I'd refer them to MOS:ALLCAPS and they will probably understand. Unless it becomes a frequent problem, I don't think it's necessary to specify street signs, among all the things which could be in all caps, in the MoS. SchreiberBike | ⌨  03:05, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Proper name vs. "consistently capitalized"

If the MOS only capitalizes names that are "consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources", it seems that it shouldn't use proper name as much as it does (40 times).

That's probably the main source of confusion and frustration: one side argues, "It is a proper name", and another says, "It's not consistently capitalized". But the MOS at times refers to proper names and says to capitalize them, leading to confusion. —Bagumba (talk) 11:35, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

:No confusion here, proper names should be uppercased. The only question is if it's a proper name or not. For example, the recent close of the names of Earth's tectonic plates which lowercases had no confusion or frustration, the plates are proper names and should have been continued to remain uppercased. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:35, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

::Do we need both proper name AND routine source capitalization… or is it either/or? Blueboar (talk) 13:12, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

:I agree entirely. We've moved away from determining what a proper name is and we've moved towards down casing anything that's not overwhelmingly capitalized in sources, leading to some proper names being downcased when they contain regular words which would normally be downcased if not part of a name. Move discussions no longer evaluate what is and isn't a proper name from my perspective. Hey man im josh (talk) 14:48, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

::I suppose the problem is that there is no clear and common understanding of what a proper name is. There are easy cases (people, countries, companies etc.), but they are not at dispute. As for the non-easy cases, "if it's capitalized it's a proper name" seems the usual heuristic, but of course that's not going to help us here. Gawaon (talk) 03:11, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

:::{{ping |Gawaon |p=}} hits the nail on the head. The definition is easy to understand for most cases, but highly debatable for edge cases. These edge cases are where we argue. The objective of seeing how others capitalize a word is to see if they treat it as a proper name/proper noun (see we even have two phrases that may have slightly different meanings). We also conventionally capitalize things like names even when they are not referring to an individual. E.g. {{tq |"My last name is shared with many Schreibers from the German diaspora."}} By the general rules of capitalization it should be {{tq |"schreibers"}} as it is in no way a proper noun as used there. It is also normal in many settings to capitalize for importance, but Wikipedia does not do that, perhaps because we don't want to argue about what is important (neutral point of view and all that). We should not expect this to be easy. SchreiberBike | ⌨  14:45, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

:::You're right, and I agree that's part of the problem, which is why we've been unable to propose a solution that works for everyone. However, based on my observations over the last year or two in move discussion, many voters are focused on the capitalization used as opposed to trying to evaluate whether something simply is or isn't a proper name. They'll often focus on the bulk of usage via ngrams as opposed to whether subject matter experts in relevant fields treat certain terms as proper names. That's evaluating usage, not evaluating whether something is a proper name. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:37, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

::::They'll often focus on the bulk of usage via ngrams as opposed to whether subject matter experts in relevant fields treat certain terms as proper names. That's evaluating usage, not evaluating whether something is a proper name. That's still evaluating usage, though. Unless their expertise is in language. It's an improper appeal to authority. Primergrey (talk) 16:15, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

:::::@Primergrey: So, in short, you're saying proper names are strictly dictated by usage? In my eyes it's not about giving experts leeway to designate things as proper names perse, but they'd be the ones more contextually familiar with what is or isn't a name. Either way, it sounds like you're supporting the idea of removing the terminology regarding proper names from the MoS. Hey man im josh (talk) 17:52, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

::::::If what a proper name is can't be clearly defined, then removing the terminology sounds prudent. Primergrey (talk) 20:00, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

:::Collins defines proper noun as: {{tq2|a noun...that is arbitrarily used to denote a particular person, place, or thing without regard to any descriptive meaning the word or phrase may have, as Lincoln, Beth, Pittsburgh.[https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/proper-noun]}} —Bagumba (talk) 17:37, 24 January 2025 (UTC)

::::It looks like Collins{{'}} covers the vast majority of uses with that. The problem is that in an encyclopedia with {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} articles a lot of things are unclear. When I read Collins{{'}} definition and examples again, it's clear they don't understand either. Their examples violate the definition. Those names do not {{tq |denote a particular person, place, or thing}}. There are many Lincolns, but we still capitalize the word. Like many things, if it seems simple, that's because you've not looked closely enough. We should not expect this to be easy. SchreiberBike | ⌨  00:41, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

:::::I think the spirit is there, even if we can nitpick the technical wording. But yeah, we need to be wary of wikilawyering or different takes on "common sense". —Bagumba (talk) 01:31, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

:::::There is a false perception of equivalence between proper noun|name and capitalisation - ie that all things we might capitalise are proper nouns. You touched upon this above. Lincolns is not a proper noun but is capitalised because it is derived from a proper noun. Most other European languages (except German) are more rigorous in their use of capitalisation - eg la flotte anglaise (the English fleet) but la flotte d'Angleterre (the fleet from England). We capitalise Lincoln when it is the name of a person (Abraham Lincoln), place (Lincoln, England) or thing (USS Abraham Lincoln). We capitalise formal institutions and company names, and brand names (Lincoln Motor Company - even though motor company is descriptive) and the names of works and publications (Lincoln the novel). What becomes problematic is when a name phrase contains descriptive or common nouns that are modified by or modify what is nominally a proper noun (eg Lincoln) in Lincoln Memorial. In this case, Lincoln is no longer acting as a proper noun but is being used as a modifier or attributive noun. We nonetheless still capitalise Lincoln because it is derived from a proper noun but memorial is a common noun that is descriptive - it is a memorial to Abraham Lincoln. Whether we should capitalise it depends on usage and we can see [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=the+Lincoln+Memorial&year_start=1950&year_end=2022&case_insensitive=true&corpus=en&smoothing=3 here] that it is capitalised with near universal consistency.

:::::See also the Battle of Waterloo ([https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=la+bataille+de+Waterloo&year_start=1950&year_end=2022&case_insensitive=true&corpus=fr&smoothing=3 la bataille de Waterloo]) which was a battle fought near the village of Waterloo. We then have things like Ballistic Missile Early Warning System or Full Faith and Credit Clause which contain no true proper nouns, are descriptive names and which are arguably being capitalised for importance, significance, emphasis or as a term of art. Some name phrases that include descriptors are capitalised with near universal consistency and we should capitalise these even if they are not technically proper nouns|names. In other cases, the need for capitalisation is questionable. So, while a definition of a proper noun (ie Collins) can guide us as to what is a proper noun|name and what might be questionable most editors that argue capitalisation on the semantics of what a proper noun is do so from a less complete definition - that the name refers to a particular thing and should therefore be capitalised. The arguments are based on a very broad interpretation of thing. I was recently reading that in cognitive development, the understanding of proper nouns develops through an associated with things that are concrete, such as a person. The arguments also ignore that while specificity of referent is a property of a proper noun, it is not a defining property - specificity can also be achieved by use of the definite article (the) and modifiers. Most debates on capitalisation relate to precisely such cases. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:50, 25 January 2025 (UTC)

:Proper names should certainly be upper-cased. GoodDay (talk) 16:49, 22 January 2025 (UTC)

  • Comment - the two concepts are synonymous in the Wikipedia world. A title is a proper name if, and only if, it is consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of reliable sources. The main difference between these terms is that the former is woolly subjective one that can't be empirically determined, whereas the latter is something that's relatively easy to verify by analysing sources, using ngrams and suchlike. So anyone arguing that something is ipso facto a proper name while accepting that it is not consistently capitalized in sources, is essentially arguing a contradiction. It isn't a proper name just because you say it is, it must meet the definition we apply.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:50, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
  • :I cant help but believe that many disagreements are from people bringing their definition of proper name to discussions. So I suggest to reduce that risk and remove, inasmuch as possible, references to proper name in the MOS. —Bagumba (talk) 09:58, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
  • ::Perhaps, you might be right, but the issue is that for many people the concept of a proper name is what they're accustomed to. Certainly in my case, I was always taught at school that those are the terms that we capitalise (although it was always called a proper noun then, the proper name concept isn't one I'd come across until I joined Wikipedia). So if we erase mention of proper names entirely and just say that our rule is to apply the consistently capitalized test, people are IMHO all the more likely turn around and say that's nonsense and the guidelines rejected because they will expecting us to talk in terms of proper names. Whereas if we are open about the fact that we also use the global standard of capitalising proper names, but are also clear that we define proper names in those terms, it's hard for them to then say some other definition of proper names should apply... I'm not saying this approach is necessarily working, the repeated claims of proper name status that we see at Talk:Eurasian plate and other such discussions make clear, but I think we'd get even more pushback if we discarded any attempt to describe our guideline as being based on proper names... Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:13, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
  • :::We may reduce the number of disillusioned editors who become exhausted with the MoS battles if we're straight forward and honest about not attempting to interpret what is and isn't a proper name, but that we're simply analyzing whether something is consistently capitalized or not. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:27, 30 January 2025 (UTC)
  • :I completely disagree. A proper name does not always end up consistently capitalized (such as my username for example). The frequency with which it's capitalized by subject matter experts vs general sweeping usage is relevant in these considerations as well, but the noise added in ngrams when a common word is used that's actually part of something like an event names ends up throwing a wrench in this concept. We're simply not analyzing whether titles are proper names when we're doing RMs, folks are just analyzing ngrams. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:25, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

::People capitalize words for many reasons. This section of the style manual for Wikipedia starts with {{tq |"Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization. In English, capitalization is primarily needed for proper names, acronyms, and for the first letter of a sentence."}} I've always read that as Wikipedia capitalizes less than some sources because other sources capitalize for reasons besides {{tq |"proper names, acronyms, and for the first letter of a sentence"}}. An ngram doesn't tell us why other sources capitalize. Most style guides recommend capital letters for article titles, section titles etc.; Wikipedia does not. Many style guides capitalize words that are important in that setting; Wikipedia does not. Many sources use all caps for emphasis; Wikipedia does not. For whatever reason, in the depths of history, Wikipedia set a style and we continue to follow it. The concept of what is or is not a proper name/noun is fuzzy, but we can work it out. SchreiberBike | ⌨  16:12, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

[[MOS:ALLCAPS]] in cases where there are almost no sources not rendering it that way

Hi all - I'm reviewing the article SEEK (conference) for DYK, and wondering whether this should be moved to Seek (conference) instead. It doesn't appear to be an abbreviation for anything, and it therefore probably doesn't meet any of the given exceptions at MOS:ALLCAPS... but on the other hand, I'm struggling to find almost any sources which don't render it as SEEK.

My sense is that while Wikipedia mostly adheres to its house style, we have a general convention of not completely "making stuff up"; for example, MOS:PREPOSITION is sometimes overruled for cases where almost the entire body of reliable sources renders the prepositions in uppercase. Should that convention apply here, or should we be fastidious and call the conference Seek even though nobody else does? Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 09:45, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

:If it's not an acronym, then it should certainly be "Seek". We don't do marketing all-caps. Gawaon (talk) 03:40, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

:@Amakuru, @Gawaon. On the other hand, we do follow nonstandard capitalization established by marketers such initial lower case and medial caps, such as iPhone and FedEx. It might be good for our MOS to specifically state what should happen in an instance like Seek/SEEK. YBG (talk) 23:10, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

::Yes, exactly. My sense is that our guideline on this is out-of-sync with all our other guidelines. While we generally prefer our house style, and we maintain it for cases where the style is somewhat supported in sourcing, in most cases we're usually clear that we don't "invent" styling that simply doesn't exist in the sourcing at all, or barely. For ALLCAPS it probably doesn't arise very often, but SEEK (conference) seems to be such a case where we might be using a style nobody else is if we go ahead. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 12:03, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

::MOS:ALLCAPS clearly covers this case, and it doesn't have an "unless everybody else does it differently" exception, as far as I can see. However, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Trademarks is relevant too, and as says: "Using all-caps is preferred if the letters are pronounced individually, even if they don't (or no longer) stand for anything." How is SEEK pronounced – four syllables or just one? It it's the former, than the all-caps should be indeed retained. Otherwise I can't see a good reason to do so. Gawaon (talk) 03:02, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

:{{u|Amakuru}}, I agree it's hard to find sources that call it "Seek". Nevertheless, I think MOS:ALLCAPS is clear: {{tq|Reduce text written in all capitals in trademarks}}. This guideline does not apply to iPhone and FedEx, since they're not branded in all-caps. And there's at least [https://aleteia.org/2023/01/13/over-17000-young-people-sing-salve-regina one source] which calls it "Seek". That said, going forward, it would be nice if the MOS were a bit clearer about this. Arbitrarily0 (talk) 10:43, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

::{{Ping|Arbitrarily0}} thanks for your input. So should we rename the article to Seek (conference) then? Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 12:02, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

:::Sounds good to me, {{u|Amakuru}}. I'll perform the move since there doesn't appear to be any objections. Arbitrarily0 (talk) 13:36, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

::::If I may reiterate, however, I think there is something here that could be helpfully clarified in the MOS, and would be curious if others agreed. Arbitrarily0 (talk) 14:15, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

:::::What exactly? To me MOS:ALLCAPS seems already clear enough. Gawaon (talk) 03:55, 7 February 2025 (UTC)

Act/Scene - Chapter/verse - Article/Section/Clause (in running text)

In running text, an article may refer to internal portions of larger works, such as the chapter of a book, or act/scene of plays, or article/section/clause in the US constitution or in chapter/verse references in the Bible or other religious texts. For example, Brides of Dracula says {{tq|In chapter three of the novel ...}} but Queequeg says {{tq|Ishmael encounters Queequeg in Chapter Three [of Moby Dick] ...}}. Similarly Supreme Court of the United States says {{tq|... a general outline of the judiciary in Article Three of the United States Constitution}} but Flag of Libya says {{tq|

The flag was officially defined in article three of the Libyan Draft Constitutional Charter ...}}. I could go on but I’m getting tired of searching for examples. Questions that need answering - when should the section type be capitalized?

  • Does it matter if the section is named and not merely numbered? (eg, "the Commerce Clause" vs "Article I, Section 8, Clause 3"
  • Does it matter if the accepted numbering style is Arabic vs Roman numerals?
  • Does it matter if a full citation is given? (eg "in verse 6:16" vs. "in verse 16"
  • Does it vary between genres or categories of works? (constitutions, plays, books, religious texts, ...)
  • Does the hierarchy level matter? (eg "Chapter" vs "verse"

There are certainly other qyestions, too. Maybe all of this is answered someplace on this page or elsewhere in the MOS; I've looked but can't find anything. I'd appreciate being directed to a place where such rules are given (or could be given). Or maybe I should post this at the teahouse? YBG (talk) 00:09, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Degrees

I come across "she gained a Bachelor of Laws" or "which was classed as a Master of Science" on occasions. Both of which seem wrong to me, but I am not able to find anything in the MoS. Perhaps someone could point me in the right direction? Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:42, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

:The MoS doesn't cover every possible issue. My usual trick is to go to Bachelor of Laws, Master of Science or whatever and see how a phrase is capitalized in Wikipedia's voice in the relevant article. I think it's debatable, but the consensus in the past has been that a named degree or certificate is a proper noun, unlike a field of study or an academic major. SchreiberBike | ⌨  14:52, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

::The redirect Master of science is tagged a miscapitalization; Bachelor of laws is not, but [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=bachelor+of+laws&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3&case_insensitive=true probably should be]. Dicklyon (talk) 23:04, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

Non-capitalised personal name

I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask this, but I have a professor who I'm referencing in an article I'm working on, and they choose to have their name spelled in all lower case. So for the article, would I maintain this style for their name, including in "sfn" references? -- Cdjp1 (talk) 21:58, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

:See MOS:BIOEXCEPT. If the professor has "consistently used" an all-lower-case style and "an overwhelming majority of reliable sources" use that style, it's probably OK to follow that style here. But it's difficult to tell without more information. Deor (talk) 22:20, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

::The professor is Ann-Elise Lewallen, currently at UC-Santa Barbara. All her published work seems to use lower case, as does her UCSB profile, with her profiles at former unis using standard capitalisation. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 10:41, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

:::Since that sounds like it's her normal name, with the lower case just a specific form of styling, I'd tend not to copy that but stick to normal case. With pen names like bell hooks it's a different matter. Gawaon (talk) 12:29, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

:::Also interesting is how others refer to her when citing her works. Do they use the lower-case form too? Gawaon (talk) 12:32, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

::::I have seen both where she is cited by others. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 14:46, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::That calls for normal case then, since it seems the "overwhelming majority of reliable sources" condition is not fulfilled. Gawaon (talk) 15:11, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::No matter which styling is chosen, I can guarantee that someone will think it a typo, and try to “correct” it. Blueboar (talk) 15:12, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::Then I propose a compromise: ann-Elise leWallen. Just kidding. Gawaon (talk) 15:15, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

JOBTITLES simplification RfC

There is an RfC to change MOS:JOBTITLES. Input would be appreciated. Surtsicna (talk) 01:29, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

Antisemitism

The advice on antisemitism seems to be inconsistent with this Wikipedia consensus from 2006: Talk:Antisemitism/Archive 23#Requested move Even (or especially) when antisemitism is in proximity to similar terms like anti-Chinese, antisemitism should still be preferred over anti-Semitism because the juxtaposition would imply an equivalence between Semitism and the other anti class. Should the antisemitism advice be changed to align with the Antisemitism page consensus? AndyBloch (talk) 04:14, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

:The clause stating that {{tq|the lower-casing of Semitic may appear pointed and insulting}} is pretty weird and like nothing I've ever heard before. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 04:38, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

::As its enforcer, I have no real idea where it came from either. Remsense ‥ 论 04:47, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

:::The 2020 thread where this verbiage was most recently established. Therein, User:SMcCandlish studiously notes the relevant basis in various past RfCs, which I've attempted to locate. I think much of the discussion is on Talk:Antisemitism/Archive 33? It all reads as somewhat prehistoric and of little instructive value though, so I'm unsure what I'm missing if anything. Remsense ‥ 论 05:08, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

::Yeah, that's nonsense. Just take that bit out. --DanielRigal (talk) 06:17, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

:Antisemitism should not be hyphenated except in quotations where the source hyphenated it. "Semitism" is not a thing in the way that Chinese is. Antisemitism is not targeted at Semitic people or something called "semitism". It is targeted at Jewish people including others perceived to be Jewish. Neither Jews, nor other Semitic people, are engaged in anything called "semitism" for the antisemites to be anti about. Looking at Wiktionary [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Semitism here] it seems that some people have recently found some (very niche) legitimate uses for the word "semitism" but it seems that it means different things in different contexts and none of them have any connection to the much older word "antisemitism". --DanielRigal (talk) 06:17, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

::I think everyone that's replied so far would align with this—given the state of that talk page something tells me there's an opposing view I don't intuit, even if the conversations there didn't really shine any light on it. Remsense ‥ 论 06:21, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

:::Agreed. Lewisguile (talk) 17:37, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

I have long advocated this usage. In terms such as "anti-fascism" or "anti-feminism", it is clear that a particular phenomenon or ideology

Is being opposed. But there is no such thing as "Semitism" except in the minds of the Jew-haters who invented the term. The use of the hyphenated and capitalised form lends credence to this misconception, and should be avoided. The hyphenated and uncapitalised form is overwhelmingly preferred by both academics and activists, and is increasingly becoming the form used by the media. I would like to see this usage globally in Wikipedia, except in direct quotations. RolandR (talk) 08:56, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

:I've restored the long-term 'no consensus' text. IMO, such stylistic ruling should have broader editorial input and be based on usage (globally) rather than what are (IMO) fairly semantic arguments about the origins and literal meaning of the elements in the term. Almost any adult Westerner knows that antisemitism is prejudice against Jews, with or without the hyphen, (not opposition to 'Semitism' which doesn't exist as a term). This is not unique, being anti-American is not the opposite of being 'American' and the meaning doesn't change with or without the hyphen. Words are understood mainly by usage, not dissecting their origins, which in this case may well have originally been a faux-academic euphemism/misnomer, but so what?Pincrete (talk) 07:10, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

::On Wikipedia, the consensus is for "antisemitism", without the hyphen, everywhere else I've looked. The Antisemitism article itself is titled without the hyphen, and there have been several discussions about the hyphen over the last two decades, with the original RM from Anti-Semitism to Antisemitism in 2006 (which I linked above). Every article title on the subject uses "Antisemitism" instead of "Anti-Semitism", except when the title is the title of something outside of Wiki, regardless of the country of focus. Examples: Antisemitism in the United Kingdom, Antisemitism in Australia, Antisemitism in Canada, Antisemitism in New Zealand. Given that there's been voluminous and repetitive discussions on other talk pages, all of which now prefer the unhyphenated version, I don't see a good reason why we should rehash the discussion here, unless there's a good reason why the MOS should have a different preference or no preference than the rest of English Wikipedia. AndyBloch (talk) 20:18, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

:::Seeing that this was seemingly well discussed already, I agree the MOS should be updated to reflect our actual established usage. Gawaon (talk) 17:28, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Article about an artist who uses a uppercase stage name

I'm currently working on this article: draft:URIEL BRG, and the artist mentioned in an interview (https://canvasrebel.com/meet-uriel-brg/) that his stage name is written and stylized in all caps. Before the article gets approved, should the article title reflect this stylization with a standard-case redirect, or should we use standard capitalization for the title and redirect from the all-caps version? Apparently this case is very similar to Charli XCX's; well, I'm looking for guidance on the best formatting choice. Coinhote (talk) 03:42, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:I would probably use URIEL BRG and make Uriel Brg and URIEL as redirects to it. Generally follow the name most commonly used by the sources you're referencing, and make the next common names down the list redirects. I'm not sure the subject of your article is sufficiently notable, though. 1101 (talk) 05:16, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

::Thank you for your assistance! I know he is not notable but has some coverage and just signed to UMG this year, so I started working on his biography because I've been a fan just as I contributed to Billie Eilish's article when she debuted in 2016. Coinhote (talk) Coinhote (talk) 06:13, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

::No! We don't use marketing/stylistic all-caps, see MOS:ALLCAPS: "Reduce names of companies or other trademarks from all caps to sentence case, unless they are acronyms or initialisms, even if the company normally writes them in all caps." So unless the name of the artist is an acronym (which doesn't seem likely?), he's going to be written as Uriel Brg in the article, and that's how the article is going to be called too – assuming he becomes sufficiently notable to get one. Having the all-caps version as a redirect is fine, of course, but not more than that. Gawaon (talk) 08:15, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:::Thanks{{hsp}}—{{hsp}}I didn't know. But Nvidia? Really? The MOS is strange. This is like using en-dashes to off­set clauses. 1101 (talk) 08:27, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

::::It's a common practice. For example, the only independent reference in the draft article (though it's a dead link) seems to use the normal-case spelling Uriel Brg too. Gawaon (talk) 09:29, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::Just to add to this... yep, many people are surprised to see the name of their favorite all-caps musician written lowercase on Wikipedia, but this is also often how such names are handled in reliable published sources such as Rolling Stone, the BBC, the Guardian, NY Times, etc. Popcornfud (talk) 17:12, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

::::{{ping|Talib1101}} I wonder what you mean about dashes. In normal English punctuation, a dash indicating a break in a sentence is usually rendered as either a spaced en dash or an unspaced em dash. Not much to do with clauses there, and no need for adding that hyphen like you did in en-dash. Dicklyon (talk) 23:29, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::Usually we don’t use all caps. However, as is noted at the start of all our MOS guidelines: occasional exceptions exist.

:::::The question is whether this is an exception or not? To answer that, look at how reliable sources (that are independent of the subject) present this artist’s name. If lots and lots of reliable sources (overwhelmingly) present it in all caps (or with some other idiosyncratic stylization) then we can probably say that we are dealing with one of those very rare exceptions. (Especially note if the sources themselves make an exception to their own internal style guides by presenting it in all caps… that would a clear indication that we should probably follow suit).

:::::The one thing we definitely don’t care about is how the subject himself/herself styles their name. Blueboar (talk) 00:03, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::Long dashes can be used to offset clauses{{hsp}}—{{hsp}}as can parentheses and commas{{hsp}}—{{hsp}}and I think it looks much better with hair-width spacing. 1101 (talk) 07:37, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

Requested move at [[Talk:Xkcd#Requested move 29 March 2025]]

File:Information.svg There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Xkcd#Requested move 29 March 2025 that may be of interest to members of this talk page. FaviFake (talk) 16:43, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

[[Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Overturning NCCAPS]]

Pls see subject discussion. Cinderella157 (talk) 13:07, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Capitalisation for awards

Some advice as to whether the 'Award' in the name of the award itself should be capitalised? I'm going to defer to the sources on this for now. I was editing The Kyiv Independent, by the way. SelfDestructible (talk) 08:40, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

:It's a case by case basis. Sometimes it's actually part of the name, and should be capitalized, other times it's not. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:45, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

::Thanks. SelfDestructible (talk) 18:30, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Miscapitalizations

We have a long-running dispute ({{ping|Hey man im josh}} and me) about which redirects should be tagged as "R from miscapitalization". This tag puts redirects into :Category:Redirects from miscapitalisations and onto the maintenance report Wikipedia:Database reports/Linked miscapitalizations. I pay attention to that report, and work on getting things off it by fixing capitalization, or sometimes by removing the tags from ones that I don't think need to be fixed. I mostly tag things that I think are over-capitalized, like NFL Draft, which he reverts. He mostly tags things that he thinks are under-capitalizalized, like Allmusic, which I reverted (since it's still commonly lowercase in sources) and 1984 Stanley Cup finals (which really should be lowercase per MOS:CAPS). Mostly I don't fight what I see as mistakes, as there's still a ton of work to do with the ones that are properly tagged, but he recently added a ton, overflowing the report's 1000-item limit with things that in many cases shouldn't even be there. And as far as I can tell, he's not doing the work to clear things from the report by fixing what he thinks are errors. So the report becomes less useful over time with this kind of junk. What I'd really like is to see others helping with case fixing, in both directions. But I'll settle for some comments and advice. Dicklyon (talk) 23:02, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

:There should be a way to tag miscapitalizations which are counter to WP's standards. WP:GNOMEs could then help fix these. There was consensus to change NFL Draft sitewide to NFL draft. However, there was a dispute over using {{tl|R from miscapitalisation}}. It's unclear how it can be ok to tag undercapitalizations but not overcaptializations. If not that tag, can another one be started?—Bagumba (talk) 02:31, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

::I've taken to using "R from over-capitalization" as more specific than "R from miscapitalization", but it redirects to the same place for now. I wouldn't mind having more specific tagging, but it might still be hard to agree on what exactly what they should be, or should mean. Dicklyon (talk) 05:19, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

:With this type of logic why have you not dealt with all of the entries in the page before adding more? The number of entries on the page isn't a reason not to tag redirects as such, and it's inaccurate to say I've focused on cases where they're under capitalized. This also feels somewhat like relitigating the previous discussion that, I believe, was at a redirect related page for when the tags were appropriate.

:The REAL flaw in this is putting too much weight on the report itself, and going back 15 years and editing POTD and DYK nominations (and user comments) to remove links. There's simply too much weight and focus being put on a singular report, as opposed to the actual meaning behind what the report was intended to be for. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:04, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

::As for "not doing the work", I regularly do a TON of cleanup, so it's absolutely insulting to act as though I do not. One example would be regularly monitoring requested move nominations, which has led to WP:CFDS being one of my most edited pages. Many of which are because of move discussions you've started but not cleaned for afterwards. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:08, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Yes, sorry, I acknowledge and thank you for doing a bunch of cleanup work. But you've also done a bunch of make-work, it appears, by creating a ton of new "miscapitalized" redirects not associated with any evidence of consensus or need. Be aware that the existence of these is what invites visual editors to link through them, which is the source of a huge number of the linked miscapitalizations in the report. Dicklyon (talk) 19:48, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

::::So you couldn't get consensus to recognize it as not a proper name, meaning we retain the status quo and treat it as such. Hey man im josh (talk) 22:38, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

:::I actually had the report down to about 300 items last September, with a ton of hard manual work, but since then there have been a lot more consensus RM decisions, and this report is an effective way to track cleanup of those. My ability to do the big cleanups is severely hampered by not having AWB access, so I did what I could manually, averaging probably well over 100 edits per day, but put more work into the moves than into the cleanup for a while. And it was below 800 entries last month, before it bloated up with your additions such as seen [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Database_reports/Linked_miscapitalizations&diff=prev&oldid=1283637759 here], and now it's about 1100, many of which have no reason other than your opinion to be marked as miscapitalizations. Dicklyon (talk) 20:19, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

::::The size of the list is entirely irrelevant, and the fact you can't use automated tools is your own fault, as is the appeal to be allowed to use them again failing. As for no reason to be there, I'm sorry you disagree with what's a proper name. Feel free to hold RMs to downcase them. Hey man im josh (talk) 22:41, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

:@Hey man im josh: For {{no redirect|1984 Stanley Cup finals}}, what was your rationale [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1984_Stanley_Cup_finals&diff=prev&oldid=1281666852 to apply R from miscapitalisation]? My impression from an earlier discussion was that you felt {{tl|R from other capitalisation}} should generally be used, unless it was a universally-followed format e.g. United States, not united States. Sources like The New York Times use "Stanley Cup finals"[https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/11/sports/hockey/lightning-avalanche-rangers-stanley-cup.html]. Thanks in advance. —Bagumba (talk) 15:18, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

::Hey @Bagumba. The difference in my approach is that from a capitalization to a lowercase should be treated differently than vice versa. In this case, we're pointing to a proper name, making the failure to capitalize properly a miscapitalization. In the other cases, it's a situation where it's viewed as a proper name by some or in some contexts, but does not match Wikipedia's styling. That would make the capitalization of NFL Draft (as a go to relevant example we're both familiar with) a good example of this, where each NFL team capitalizes it but it was decided that it doesn't fit into Wikipedia's styling. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:22, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

:::@Hey man im josh: Sure, but why apply greater weight to those who decide to treat it as a proper name, marking the lower case redirects as a "miscapitalisation", while the upper case redirects have a more "lenient" sounding "other capitalisation"? —Bagumba (talk) 15:34, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

::::@Bagumba: From my perspective, when you fail to capitalize a proper name, it's an error, when you capitalize something differently when its capitalization can go both ways, it's an alternative capitalization. Unless consensus has been gained to treat something as not a proper name (downcasing), we should be treating many lowercased redirects to capitalized titles as such. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:44, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Here's a simple heuristic rule that people might be OK with: If an editor marks a redirect as a miscapitalization, and another editor undoes that (marks it as "R from other capitalization"), then that should be allowed to stand as other, unless there is a demonstrated consensus for the correct case on Wikipedia (an RM or other discussion with a clear outcome, not "no consensus"). Simple? Dicklyon (talk) 02:54, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

{{ping|Hey man im josh}}, however, says [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_radio_stations_in_the_West_Coast_region&diff=prev&oldid=1285588129 in this revert] that one needs to find consensus that it's not a proper name to remove what is essentially his assertion that it is. I think RM discussions are where such things are likely to be hashed out, and this one clearly did not find a consensus that it needs to be capitalized on Wikipedia. We did find a consensus that NFL draft should not use capitalized Draft, yet he removes the miscapitalized tag from those. I don't see how he can logically argue that he should get his way on both of these. Or on either one, really. Dicklyon (talk) 18:28, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

:Guess I missed this discussion being started. You attempted to downcase the pages, which there was not consensus for. As such, there's no reason not to treat them as proper names considering they were kept at the capitalized titles. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:01, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

::There was originally a close to downcase Region. Then that was re-opened and closed as no consensus. Certainly no consensus to capitalize them, especially with the acknowledgement that they often refer to the region, not the adminstrative unit. But in any case, you can't have it both ways, unilaterally deciding what needs to be capitalized while ignoring consensus decisions for what should be lowercase. Dicklyon (talk) 19:48, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

:::So you failed to get consensus to change away from a proper name, changed a ton of links, and now you don't want to clean up your own mess? Figures. You originally added the upper case version to the list, changed all the links, and now you should also be responsible for changing them back if you don't like the result of your failed RM. A lower case to a proper name IS a miscapitalization. Don't like it? Ignore the report. Hey man im josh (talk) 22:43, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Concerning anything to do with the Stanley Cup Finals? Just open an RM to cover all those pages. GoodDay (talk) 20:58, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

:Yeah it's really that simple. Why wouldn't we treat lowercase titles to proper names as miscapitalizations? Dicklyon has been doing the opposite for years. Hey man im josh (talk) 22:44, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

::You keep ignoring consensus. There was no consensus to cap Region in the New Zealand regions ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Auckland_Region#Requested_move_20_January_2025 closer wrote]: "No consensus. In deference to the earlier closure, at that time there were no editors in opposition [to lowercase region]. Now, we see below strong, P&G-based arguments in both camps; however, there is in this case no agreement whether to keep current titles or to move them.". There was a consensus to lowercase draft in the sports contexts. Yet you treat lowercase regions as an error and uppercase Draft as OK. You can't have it both ways. Dicklyon (talk) 03:33, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

:::{{tq|You keep ignoring consensus}} – That's a lofty claim which I don't believe is appropriate. Feel free to relitigate the close, but when something is considered a proper name then the lowercase version to it would be considered a miscapitalization.

:::{{tq|There was a consensus to lowercase draft in the sports contexts.}} – Huh? No there wasn't, it's a case by case basis because these events need to be evaluated separately. There was never a consensus that "all titles which contain draft should be downcased and are not proper names in any context ever. It feels as though you're being intentionally obtuse in your obsession with drafts. As previously discussed, way too many times, to the point it feels like you're being intentionally disruptive, titles which are downcased on wiki due to (silly) ngram results are not necessarily not treated as proper names elsewhere, it doesn't mean the title isn't a proper name at all. It just means that, within Wikipedia style, it is downcased. One example of this is the NFL having a style guide which all NFL teams use that treat "NFL Draft" as a proper name. Is someone wrong for copying what the NFL consistently does? Absolutely not, they treat the event name as a proper name, as countless others do for various events. As such, it's not a miscapitalization when the event's name is treated as a proper name, meaning labeling it as an error in capitalization is inappropriate. That is very clearly different than a case of a title of an event or area that is written in lower case but redirects to a name which is capitalized. The event or area has not been downcased, and should be treated as a proper name.

:::To keep it simple... of course lowercase redirects to uppercase names are more likely to be considered a miscapitalization. But I'm not sure we have to relitigate this in a new venue every few months. Hey man im josh (talk) 13:17, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

In the case of the New Zealand regions, the RM discussion we're talking about is at Talk:Auckland Region#Requested move 20 January 2025. On 28 Jan, the first closer wrote "The result of the move request was: moved. Consensus that "region" is not consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of sources per MOS:CAPS; a check at ngrams confirms this: "region" is always either ahead or at worst tied; none of these are mainly capitalised, let alone with a substantial minority." Later, after it was re-opened for a while, the second closer wrote, "No consensus. In deference to the earlier closure, at that time there were no editors in opposition. Now, we see below strong, P&G-based arguments in both camps; however, there is in this case no agreement whether to keep current titles or to move them." There's certainly no indication that I can find of any consensus that it's a proper name, and therefore the lowercase alternative is an "other capitalization", not a "miscapitalization", especially in contexts that are schools, rivers, etc. in the region, not about the adminstrative entity itself. Dicklyon (talk) 04:36, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

Reversions at [[Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#Compass_points|Compass points]]

I made two simple changes here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AManual_of_Style%2FCapital_letters&diff=1284934835&oldid=1284100461 Both changes were reverted by @Deor, then one was restored by @Deor, then the other change was reverted by @Cinderella157 with the explanation "unnecessary."

The changes were

(1) I added a serial comma. Whatever you think of serial commas, the Wikipedia standard at MOS:SERIAL is, "Editors may use either convention so long as each article is internally consistent." Scan through the rest of article. Most other serial lists use serial commas. If you're going to revert this instance, you have a lot more to change as well. Neither serial commas nor omission of serial commas is necessary, but it is necessary to be consistent within an article.

(2) I changed the serial list's coordinating conjunction from "or" to "and." This is a list of examples of reliable sources, ALL of which apply. Thus, "and" is correct. For "or" to be correct, then the three items must be examples only as alternatives to one another. This is not the case. All three truly are examples of sources. It is not true that only a, b, OR c is an example; they are all examples. This is a clear-cut case for "and"; "or" does not make logical sense here. Holy (talk) 00:23, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

:The reason I restored the or was to preserve the parallelism of "as with North Korea, Southern California, or Western Europe" with "as with eastern Spain or southwest Poland" in the following sentence. It seems to me that either both should be and or both shoukd be or. I agree with you that serial commas are the predominant usage on the page; that's why, after checking, I restored it with the edit summary "on second thought ..." I have no idea why Cinderella157 reverted me. Deor (talk) 01:50, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

:Actually, I see a lot of inconsistent use of the comma before and. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:35, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

::I reverted you to put the comma back, as I see the Oxford comma being pretty consistently used on that guideline page. I couldn't find another place where it was not used, so if you're seeing some, let me know and I'll add the comma. Dicklyon (talk) 03:34, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

:::It is more a lot of places it shouldn't be used. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:27, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

::::Examples? Dicklyon (talk) 04:40, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::See the section Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Anglo- and similar prefixes for some. Cinderella157 (talk) 08:01, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::I'm not sure what you're getting at, but I removed two commas that seemed unnecessary, and added one Oxford comma for consistency. Are you just saying you don't like Oxford commas? I know that's a common preference, but this page seems to use them throughout. Dicklyon (talk) 22:13, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::I reverted the edit because it was adding a comma where it did not appear necessary since it had not been there before and the edit summaries indicated consistency was without the comma, though the second thought did not of itself suggest that consistency lay the other way. An error on my part induced by the brevity of the summaries. I can live with serial commas per the guidance. However, there appears to be a lot of spurious {{tq|, and}} floating around that don't meet the three or more list requirement (see [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters&diff=prev&oldid=1285482314 here]). Cinderella157 (talk) 00:10, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::Yes, please do fix extra spurious commas, but sometimes those commas before "and" in non-list context serve a different role, as those between independent clauses (see Rule 1 [https://www.brandeis.edu/writing-program/resources/students/academic/style-grammar/comma-rules.html here]). Dicklyon (talk) 02:48, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

::::I don't know any rules against using Oxford commas, so how you can say they are over-used? Gawaon (talk) 08:11, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Capitalization of L-/D- prefixes for organic chemistry

I recently discovered that there is no guidance on how to handle the capitalization of L-/D- prefixes for organic chemistry. After posting on the talk page of a niche chemistry article, @Paradoctor advised me to bring the discussion here instead.

According to the IUPAC guidelines for carbohydrate nomenclature "The configurational symbols D and L should appear in print in small-capital roman letters" ([https://media.iupac.org/publications/pac/1996/pdf/6810x1919.pdf Nomenclature of Carbohydrates] p. 1929). However, how this is implemented seems to differ quite a bit from article to article with both small capital letters and small caps being used (variations used include {{tag|small}}, {{tl|sm}}, {{tl|smallcaps all}} and {{tl|sc}} (with the latter two apparently being deprecated)).

I would appreciate if a consensus could be reached about how to implement the L-/D- prefix styling. I would also suggest adding information about the preferred way to do it to WP:CHEMPREFIX when a consensus is reached. Veryspecific (talk) 05:13, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

:Ok, I admit I got confused for a while. It hadn't registered with me that small caps applies to lowercase letters only. Uppercase letters are not changed by small caps styling. Now that I got that straight, the solution is clear:

::: {{code|1={{((}}small caps{{!}}d{{))}}-fucol}} yields {{small caps|d}}-fucol

:{{tag|small}} should not be used, because it gets rendered differently, as L{{sm|l}}LL and D{{sm|d}}DD demonstrate. The first and last letters are the unstyled uppercase variants, the second is small caps, the third is the {{tag|small}} variant. Perhaps more importantly, the tag does not communicate the rendering intent of displaying small caps. Paradoctor (talk) 07:43, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

:The template:smallcaps2 (alias template:sc2) is the right way to style it IMO. {{sc2|D}}-fucol ({{sc2|D}}-fucol) can be copied and pasted to plain text and still retain the capital D. Indefatigable (talk) 14:12, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

::{{tl|sc2}}: {{tq|this template should only be used for acronyms or other material which is supposed to be capitalized regardless of style}} Paradoctor (talk) 20:11, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

:::I can't tell if you're supporting or opposing the use of sc2, but the doc you quoted supports it - the D and L are supposed to be capitalized, and in small caps when that styling is available. Indefatigable (talk) 00:48, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

::::{{tq|D and L are supposed to be capitalized}} {{u|Veryspecific}}? Paradoctor (talk) 00:59, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::I would agree with Indefatigable. The prefixes are supposed to be capitalized, as lowercase l-/d- prefixes are outdated versions of (+)-/(-)- nomenclature (optical rotation) that should not be confused with L-/D- prefixes (relative configuration). Veryspecific (talk) 04:54, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::Ok then, {{tl|sc2}} it is. Paradoctor (talk) 05:18, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::One issue, though: {{tl|sc2}} uses {{tag|templatestyles|v}}, which does not work when used in WP:DISPLAYTITLE. Par for the course.

::::::As a workaround, use

::::::: {{code|1={{((}}DISPLAYTITLE:PREFIXRESTOFTITLE{{))}}}}

::::::Production example at special:permalink/1285852146.

::::::What a mess. Paradoctor (talk) 06:21, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

:I have undone the change of the the CHEM guideline. This discussion has lasted 2ish days, was claimed as consensus by the heavily involved proposer, had minimal participation, was not notified to the wikiprojects that are actually affected, affected hundreds or thousands of articles, and has at least one technical concern that was already mentioned here. If you're going to change the workflow and standards of dozens of long-term skilled writers, you could at least have the courtesy to invite them to discuss it. DMacks (talk) 12:54, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Geological names

Given that geographical or place names are included in this MoS, I think there should be a section for geological names since geography and geology are related topics. There has been much debate over the capitalization of geological names over the years and I have not been able to find a suitable guideline for it. There is currently a requested move on Talk:Bakken formation over whether or not the title of this article should be Bakken formation or Bakken Formation. According to the International Commission on Stratigraphy on the naming of stratigraphical units: "Capitalization - The first letters of all words used in the names of formal stratigraphic units are capitalized (except for the trivial names of species and subspecies rank in the names of biostratigraphic units). Informal terms are not capitalized." (source: https://stratigraphy.org/guide/defs). In this case Bakken formation should be capitalized because it is a formal term per the [https://weblex.canada.ca/html/000000/GSCC00053000705.html Lexicon of Canadian Geologic Units]. Volcanoguy 19:31, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

Sentence case or title case for multi-word WikiProject names?

There seems to be an inconsistency in how the capitalization of multi-word WikiProject names are handled. Title case examples include: WP:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography and WP:WikiProject Ice Hockey. Sentence case examples include: WP:WikiProject Video games, WP:WikiProject Classical music, and WP:WikiProject College football. Has there ever been a consensus or guideline about this? Left guide (talk) 09:34, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

:I had brought up this issue at this RM: WT:WikiProject Women's Health#Requested move 11 April 2025. Still open. My impression is that the majority are named such that the words after "WikiProject" match the title of a main article, i.e. sentence case. When that's not the case, more work is needed to avoid linking over-capitalized redirects, and things like that. Dicklyon (talk) 06:40, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

::Surely actual sentence case would be "WP:WikiProject crime and criminal biography", "WP:WikiProject ice hockey", "WP:WikiProject video games", etc. I don't know what style name to call capitalizing the first and second words and then not capitalizing the rest. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:13, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

:::I guess the word "WikiProject" is considered a de facto prefix since it exists on every WikiProject title, at least that's how I'm able to make sense of it. Left guide (talk) 07:16, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

::::When we use sentence case, even when things start with stopper words like "The", we don't use it as an excuse to capitalize only the second word of the title. The namespace prefix is the "WP:", not what comes after it. And articles such as [https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05947-8] that talk about these projects include "WikiProject" as part of the project title, not just a piece of syntax used internally to refer to the project. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:45, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::Indeed, the common capitalization pattern is not very logical. But it is the dominant convention, so I'm not in favor of changing it. I just want to fix the few that are more capitalized that usual, since they tend to cause links to show up on Wikipedia:Database reports/Linked miscapitalizations in template space. Dicklyon (talk) 05:38, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

:My perspective is that, if anything, WikiProject should be at the end of these names. Hey man im josh (talk) 15:34, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

::There are plenty of university departments of mathematics (lowercase meaning that they are departments that house mathematicians and teach mathematics) whose proper name is Department of Mathematics, others whose proper name is Mathematics Department, and others that have other names entirely. If you consider starting a new WikiProject, you could consider naming it WP:Onomastics WikiProject, just to introduce some of that same name diversity into our system. But the existing WikiProjects have names (proper noun phrases) that happen to have WikiProject in front, and in many cases have the other words capitalized in their name. You wouldn't suggest changing the capitalization of "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" to "United kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" merely because "kingdom" is also a common English word and is used with its usual meaning in that phrase, would you? This suggestion strikes me as in the same vein. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:29, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

::That's a bit too radical and disruptive, I expect. But moving a few projects to the most common style should be a lot easier to swallow. It's not about MOS compliance per se, since these are not in article space, but making this change will make it easier to maintain links to over-capitalized redirects, which is what brought this up. Dicklyon (talk) 17:40, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

:::"The most common style" being first and second words capitalized, rest lowercase?? —David Eppstein (talk) 17:56, 23 April 2025 (UTC)

::::Pretty much so. I.e. the most common style is "WikiProject" followed by a main article title as if it's sentence-initial, like WP:WikiProject College football. Dicklyon (talk) 05:42, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::If that's what those WikiProjects want to name themselves then ok, but I think it's a stupid style to impose on others that want proper capitalization for their proper noun phrase names. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:52, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::It's not about proper nouns, but about how to most easily keep the project names, category names, project templates on talk pages working corrrectly together when the main topic is not a proper noun phrase. Dicklyon (talk) 23:37, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::Who cares whether the name of the WikiProject, a proper noun phrase, was constructed using English words that happen to be non-proper noun phrases or with made-up neologisms? It is still the name of the WikiProject, a proper noun phrase, exactly as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a proper noun phrase that happens to have been constructed using non-proper nouns and adjectives united, kingdom, of, great, and, northern. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:06, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::::Who cares whether you think of WikiProject names as proper noun phrases? Most of them are not treated that way. Dicklyon (talk) 04:52, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

What? Now there's an attempt to lowercase all WikiProject titles, too? GoodDay (talk) 05:20, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

: Absolutely not. Requires renaming thousands of pages, breaking categories, modules, links and templates all over the place, for no benefit whatsoever. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:35, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

::Good Day is confused when he says "there's an attempt to lowercase all WikiProject titles". I don't have a complete list, but it looks like there about 800 or so WikiProjects with multiword "main article" names; the majority of those are proper names (e.g. WP:WikiProject James Bond), and are not at issue here at all. Of the 300 or so that are not proper names, about 230 already have the name in the Wikiproject matching the capitalization of the main article. Only about 70 are the subject of this discussion; e.g. WP:WikiProject Ice Hockey with main article Ice hockey. So, dozens, not thousands. Getting these fixed without breaking anything should be straightforward, but will take some time. Dicklyon (talk) 02:42, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

Capitalization of "cabinet" in government articles

I noticed some inconsistencies in article titles (First cabinet of Donald Trump vs. First Cabinet of Thabo Mbeki) and then within articles themselves (the Cabinet of Barack Obama article contains both "Obama Cabinet" and "Obama cabinet"). After typing "First cabinet of" into the search bar and seeing cabinet capitalized in every title, I mistakenly believed that there was already consensus to capitalize to Cabinet in this context and performed two bad and poorly explained page moves ([https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Second_cabinet_of_Donald_Trump&diff=1286903106&oldid=1286765283 A] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=First_cabinet_of_Donald_Trump&diff=1286903132&oldid=1283319082 B]). Thank you {{u|Dicklyon}} for getting those reversed. There isn't actually a consensus as far as I can tell, and a full 50 articles of the "Nth cabinet of X" form use the lowercase version. I've now looked in various dictionaries and manuals of styles and found inconsistent advice:

  • [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cabinet Merriam-Webster]: "often capitalized"
  • [https://www.dictionary.com/browse/cabinet Dictionary.com]: "Often Cabinet"
  • [https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/cabinet Cambridge English Dictionary]: this one is hard for me to decipher
  • New Oxford American Dictionary Third Edition: "also Cabinet" in Commonwealth countries. Does not mention capitalization in the US but does provide the example "[as modifier] a cabinet meeting"
  • Chicago Manual of Style 18th Edition: "Certain generic terms associated with governmental bodies are lowercased{{nbsp}}... cabinet" (Jackson's Kitchen Cabinet is the only mentioned exception)
  • [https://www.digital.govt.nz/standards-and-guidance/design-and-ux/content-design-guidance/grammar-and-punctuation New Zealand government]: "Use capitals for such things as:{{nbsp}}... Cabinet, when referring to the government‘s Cabinet Office"
  • [https://www.stylemanual.gov.au/grammar-punctuation-and-conventions/names-and-terms/government-terms Australian Government Style Manual]: "Always use an initial capital for ‘the Cabinet’ to show the difference from its generic reference"
  • [https://www.archives.gov/files/open/plain-writing/style-guide.pdf NARA Style Guide] (US): "Capitalize the names of Cabinet-level bodies and shortened forms"
  • [https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/44975-StyleGuide.pdf Congressional Budget Office] (US): "Uppercase when referring to the President’s Cabinet{{nbsp}}... Lowercase when referring to other cabinets"
  • [https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-STYLEMANUAL-2008/pdf/GPO-STYLEMANUAL-2008-6.pdf GPO Style Manual] (US): "Cabinet, American or foreign, if part of name or standing alone"

Because this affects more than just article titles, and because I'm confused as to what capitalization is correct, I'm asking here before requesting any page moves. How should (or how does) Wikipedia handle the capitalization of cabinet? My sense is that it is capitalized when it is part of a formal name, such as "Cabinet of Countryname", and not capitalized in the generic sense of "a cabinet is a group of people". But what about cases like "Leadername's cabinet", "their cabinet", "the Leadername cabinet", "the first cabinet of Leader Name", and the adjectival "a cabinet meeting" in the context of a specific leader's cabinet? PrinceTortoise (he/him • poke) 00:23, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

  • Some n-gram stats: [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=the+first+cabinet+of&year_start=1920&year_end=2022&case_insensitive=true&corpus=en&smoothing=3] , [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=the+second+cabinet+of&year_start=1920&year_end=2022&case_insensitive=true&corpus=en&smoothing=3], [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=the+cabinet+of+president&year_start=1920&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3&case_insensitive=true], [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=the+Cabinet+of+*%2Cthe+cabinet+of+*&year_start=1920&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3] suggest that the Cabinet of Ministers (of certain countires such as the USSR) is about the only place where it's pretty consistently capped. Dicklyon (talk) 04:47, 24 April 2025 (UTC)
  • :N-grams were a good idea, and it's hard to argue against those graphs. Except for the "Cabinet of Countryname" type [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=cabinet+of+the+United+States&year_start=1920&year_end=2022&case_insensitive=true&corpus=en&smoothing=3] [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=cabinet+of+Canada&year_start=1920&year_end=2022&case_insensitive=true&corpus=en&smoothing=3], [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=cabinet+of+the+United+Kingdom&year_start=1920&year_end=2022&case_insensitive=true&corpus=en&smoothing=3], [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Cabinet+of+Australia%2Ccabinet+of+Australia&year_start=1920&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3], [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Cabinet+of+New+Zealand%2Ccabinet+of+New+Zealand&year_start=1920&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3], at least some of which appear to be proper names, it would seem Cabinet of Ministers is the only place with consistent capitalization. Here's the "[Recent US President] cabinet" n-gram [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Bush+cabinet%2CBush+Cabinet%2CObama+cabinet%2CObama+Cabinet%2CTrump+cabinet%2CTrump+Cabinet&year_start=1920&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3&case_insensitive=false] and the "[Recent US President]'s cabinet" [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Bush%27s+cabinet%2CBush%27s+Cabinet%2CObama%27s+cabinet%2CObama%27s+Cabinet%2CTrump%27s+cabinet%2CTrump%27s+Cabinet&year_start=1920&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3] n-gram. Lowercase is more common in both cases. "[C/c]abinet meeting" has been more commonly lowercase since 1990 [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=cabinet+meeting%2CCabinet+meeting&year_start=1920&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=0&case_insensitive=false]. "[C/c]abinet nominee" made the switch to lowercase in the late 90s [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=cabinet+nominee%2CCabinet+nominee&year_start=1920&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=1&case_insensitive=false]. I'll go notify WikiProject Politics of this discussion since it primarily affects articles within their scope. PrinceTortoise (he/him • poke) 06:14, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

:I’d make a distinction between the institution (the Cabinet or Government), capitalized, and its temporary formations or memberships (the Merz cabinet and Bayrou government, which are a cabinet or government), lowercase. Keriluamox (talk) 07:42, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

Why no VAR?

The advice in the lead that {{gi|only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia}} goes against the grain of the advice in STYLEVAR, ENGVAR, DATEVAR and CITEVAR, which is that multiple styles are fine so long as there is is consistency within articles (and, where CONSUB applies, between subarticles). I am not concerned with rules for articles titles so much as for the forced application of article title case throughout the encyclopaedia. Is it necessary to everywhere write Iberian Peninsula instead of Iberian peninsula or Tang dynasty instead of Tang Dynasty? Srnec (talk) 20:17, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

:I think the point is that capitalization in Wikipedia is intended to have a defined meaning. If we avoid unnecessary capitalization, then when caps are used, it should be because that's necessary, and the reader should not have to wonder if this is just a page with a style of doing unnecessary capitalization. Dicklyon (talk) 21:52, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

::Some people seem to see all our VARs as a positive thing. I see it as evidence we couldn't reach a compromise. We did reach agreement on capitalization and though it's never been without controversy, it works fine. I don't want to see more variation. I'd rather see more compromise. SchreiberBike | ⌨  23:14, 27 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Did some work earlier today on uppercasing Iberian Peninsula, and have about 150 or so to go. Tang Dynasty is actually much more uppercased than not in the n-grams. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:42, 27 April 2025 (UTC)