Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters/Archive 15

Archive 10

←

Archive 13

Archive 14

Archive 15

Archive 16

Archive 17

→

Archive 20

President of the United States

Hmm... I re-read the guideline so that I could better comment in the thread above (re Prime Minister)... and now I'm confused as well... The section on titles first states:

• When the correct formal title is treated as a proper name (e.g. King of France; it is correct to write Louis XVI was King of France but Louis XVI was the French king)

OK, I get that... but we then go on to say...

• When an unhyphenated compound title such as vice president or chief executive officer is capitalized (unless this is simply because it begins a sentence), each word begins with a capital letter: In 1974 Vice President Ford was sworn in as the 38th president of the United States by Chief Justice Warren Burger

Shouldn't that be "... Ford was sworn in as the 38th President of the United States..."? Isn't the title "President of the United States" analogous to the title "King of France"? Blueboar (talk) 18:02, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Of all the kings, the French one is referred to by "the French king". Similarly, of all the American presidents, here we have the 38th. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 18:27, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

If it were "38th American president", I would agree that it should be "president". But I think it's acceptable to capitalize any "President of the United States", and usually preferable to do so, though having 38 of anything makes it feel a little common. This can flip back and forth in your mind like a Rubin vase, but I would be OK with upper-casing this example. Chris the speller ^yack 18:36, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

That was downcased in this diff of last March 9, citing talk: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters/Archive_12#President_of_the_United_States. Dicklyon (talk) 18:45, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I think Chris is right... if it were "Ford became the 38th president" it would be lower cased, but as soon as you add "of the United States" it becomes a formal title like "King of France" and would be capitalized. Perhaps we should re-open the discussion that Dick links.... I note that n grams strongly favors capitalizing for "President of the United States".

That said... I note that the paragraph in question isn't really about the capitalization of the word "president" or the title "President of the United States"... it's talking about the capitalization of unhyphenated compound title such as vice president. So... perhaps the best solution would be to re-write the example to give it better focus (ie one that only mentions the unhyphenated compound title "Vice President" and no longer has the potential for confusion by also mentioning the title "President of the United States"). Blueboar (talk) 13:48, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps: "On October 10, 1973, Vice President Agnew resigned and Gerald Ford was appointed to replace him." Blueboar (talk) 14:03, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I like it! Chris the speller ^yack 15:06, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

OK... I have been bold and made the swap. If someone feels I have been too bold, feel free to revert... and we can discuss further. Blueboar (talk) 20:51, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I disagree with the capitalized "president" in this case. "President of the United States Gerald Ford" is correct, as "president" is part of the title, attached to a specific person whose title it is/was. But in the sentence excerpt "Ford was sworn in as the 38th president of the United States", president is not part of a title, but is a common name for the office. This is in fact analogous to "king of France" (which is the correct capitalization), for the title is "King", as in "King Louis XIV of France". The common name of the office is "king of France". Evensteven (talk) 23:47, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Addendum: Yes, I'm saying the guideline is in error. Evensteven (talk) 23:52, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Secretary of State

WP:JOBTITLES says that generic offices, titles and positions should be in lower case. Does this take precedence over the capitalized forms that are found in dictionaries? Macmillan has "Secretary of State", without a lower-case option. I approach "Minister of Finance" with trepidation; Wikipedia has the capitalized form more than 5 to 1 over the lower-case form, not counting cases where the person's name immediately follows. "Finance Minister" is more frequently used than "finance minister", but it's not a landslide. The article War of Attrition has "... the American president, Richard Nixon, sent his Secretary of State, William Rogers, to formulate ...". It seems odd to capitalize only the title of the lower-ranked official. There seems to be a tendency to capitalize more when there is more descriptive text following, or part of, the name of the position: "He was the executive director of sales" is fine, but "He was the Executive Director of Egg Whisks and Self-Sharpening Toenail Clippers" seems to demand upper case, at least to many editors. This cleaning up of job titles is not for wimps. Chris the speller ^yack 18:37, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Hmmm... I am wondering if there isn't an ENGVAR issue here. Certainly most Americans would assume that one should capitalize the names of political offices (President of the United States, Speaker of the House, Under Secretary of the Navy, etc.) as well as political titles (President Obama, Speaker Boehner, Acting Under Secretary Hicks, etc.) I am not saying whether capitalization is correct or incorrect ... just that it is very common, and that most Americans will be surprised to be told that capitalization is incorrect. So is it perhaps an American thing? Blueboar (talk) 02:08, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Without looking around, you mean President Obama or Speaker Boehner is incorrect English? I'm trying to recall when I've seen it lower case. Fyunck(click) (talk) 02:48, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

No, I mean specific offices and positions like "President of the United States", "Speaker of the House", and "Under Secretary of the Navy" are usually capitalized... as are the generic (short form) versions, when referring to these specific offices ("While the President addressed Congress, the Speaker sat behind him and smiled at the Under Secretary"). Blueboar (talk) 03:23, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Note that "the Speaker" is a special case; "Speaker" is capitalized to eliminate confusion about whether it is the person who holds that position or someone who is running his/her mouth at the moment. In this example, it seems to be permissible to capitalize "President" as it refers to a particular event, and we can assume that this particular president has already been identified. Chris the speller ^yack 16:51, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm American, and learned the rules as I understand them here. Yet I must grant your observation about offices in terms of common American usage; I've seen it in widespread, official, and formal use, where literacy is valued most. The "rules" are always a summary of literate usage, and even illiterate use can eventually (sometimes) overcome that. As such, the rules can and do change over time. If gut feel has anything to do with it, my inclination is to accept capitalization of certain office titles alone, without reference to a specific individual, based on observed usage. But this list is of high governmental offices, and the capitalization may just seem more acceptable there, as a kind of added honorific. It diminishes a lot for something like Director of Manufacturing Northeast in a company. Still, the caps do clearly identify the title that is bestowed on the holder of the office, and that can be useful even in the absence of mention of an individual. That's just me, for what it's worth. And I have no idea whatever if it's specific to American English or not. Evensteven (talk) 10:09, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

British prime minister

Putting "British prime minister" in front of a name has me thrown for a loop. Of the following possibilities, is only one correct?

He met with the British prime minister, Winston Churchill.

He met with the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.

He met with British prime minister Winston Churchill.

He met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

The 4th of those appears frequently, but the MoS says "When followed by a person's name to form a title", and I am not sure that "British Prime Minister Winston Churchill" is a proper title, though "Prime Minister Winston Churchill" clearly is a proper title. Chris the speller ^yack 16:13, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

In this sentence, it seems to me that "prime minister" is used as a common name. I would therefore write the British prime minister, or the British queen, Elizabeth II. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 16:47, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

First, ask whether you really need to use the word "British" in direct association with the title... it might be something that can be understood from the broader context. For example: "President Roosevelt worked closely with the British government. He frequently consulted with Prime Minister Winston Churchill."

If the context is not clear, consider a rewrite: "President Roosevelt worked closely with several allied governments. He frequently consulted with Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Britain, and Prime Minister Mackenzie King of Canada." ... or something like that. (unsigned comment by Blueboar)

I agree with Blueboar that this construction is best avoided. I also note that, whatever the MOS says, in British English the uncapitalized forms are unusual, although not entirely unknown (see Google ngram, Google ngram). They look distinctly American to me. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:01, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

This feedback is helpful and much appreciated. It now seems clearer to me that, of the 4 choices above, the 4th is the worst, the 2nd is bad, the 3rd is acceptable, and the 1st is the best choice, unless the sentence is recast, which I have started doing. Chris the speller ^yack 18:42, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Yep, I agree the first is best. +1 Bluboar. Tony (talk) 08:53, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Small point, but you should not say Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Britain as the nation is called the United Kingdom; Britain or Great Britain refers to the island containing England, Scotland and Wales, but excludes Northern Ireland. —sroc 💬 13:05, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with the fourth choice. In it, we capitalize British not because it is part of Churchill's title, but because we capitalize nationalities. We capitalize "Prime Minister" in that case because it is used as the title for the specific person. The first choice is also correct because the comma separates "prime minister" from Churchill, so it is no longer used as the title of a specific person, but as a common name. However, "British" remains capitalized for the very same reason as in the fourth example. So my take is that choices #1 and #4 are both correct, and #2 and #3 are both incorrect. #3 fails to capitalize the title, which is in error. Evensteven (talk) 23:38, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

But in the fourth choice, does "British" modify "Winston Churchill" or "Prime Minister" or "Prime Minister Winston Churchill"? If the last, is it because there is another Winston Churchill who is prime minister of another nation? If it modifies "Prime Minister", then "Prime Minister" is being used in its generic form and should be downcased. The fact that you can insert a comma after "prime minister" without changing the meaning indicates to me that "prime minister" is generic here. Consider this: in a setting where there are several prime ministers in a meeting – "When the name was mentioned, the British prime minister glanced at his notes ...". If it was not clear from the context which Briton was prime minister at the time, you could simply add "Attlee" with paired commas; there is no need to instead, or also, capitalize "prime minister". Case 4 is nothing but trouble, and the more I look at it, the more I dislike it. It's pretty easy to fix. Chris the speller ^yack 17:21, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't matter which term "British" modifies; it applies to both. However, there is a difference in meaning in each of the following, which I believe are both correct:

1. He met with the British prime minister, Winston Churchill.

4. He met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

In #1, the name is in apposition to the title, set off with a comma ("the British prime minister, [who is named] Winston Churchill"), so "prime minister" is not used as a part of the name and is therefore not capitalised. In #4, "Prime Minister" acts as part of his name (like "Dr Samuels"), so it is capitalised. —sroc 💬 13:02, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Note my question below about a possible ENGVAR issue... in the US, it is fairly standard to capitalize specific political offices. Americans would normally write: "He met with the American President, and agreed to the treaty." Blueboar (talk) 13:41, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

dab page titles

A lot of dab pages have titles that normally would not be capitalized, like "Air Force", but every link is to a page where it is capitalized, like "Egyptian Air Force", "Royal Air Force", etc. It seems like a clear case to not capitalize in the title, but its so prevalent that I thought I'd put it out there. No response from the MOSDAB page. Primergrey (talk) 05:47, 14 February 2015 (UTC) 05:46, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

If the pages are all proper names, I would not object to caps for the ambiguous part of those names. Dicklyon (talk) 05:48, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

dab pages are not articles... even though they exist in "article space", they are purely navigational in their nature. Therefore, the MOS rules that we would normally apply to articles are not going to be completely applicable to navigational pages. Essentially, my feeling is that if a dab page's style helps readers to more easily navigate Wikipedia, allow it. Blueboar (talk) 16:42, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

The MOSDAB page makes it pretty clear that the MOS is still the way to go. I've been leaving title case where all the items are capped but if any of the list aren't, I've changed the page name. Primergrey (talk) 19:49, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree that following the MOS is the way to go in general; thanks for your efforts in that direction. As for leaving caps where all the items are capped, I think it's OK, since it's about disambiguating those items, even if the ambiguous part is not itself a proper name. I don't usually align with Blueboar on such things, but helpfulness to readers is what dab pages are all about, so why not? To me, the over-capitalization of actual article titles is the bigger problem; even when our MOS and sources are unambiguously in agreement in lowercase, we get groups of specialists getting their way capitalizing; you've probably noticed, if you look at WP:RM now and then. Dicklyon (talk) 01:34, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Science: chemical names with Greek prefixes

α-Santalol, α-amino acid, α-Methylfentanyl, β-Lactam, β-lactamase, β-lactam antibiotics, β-Santalol, β-blocker...What is the rule of capitalising chemical names starting with a Greek letter? kashmiri ^TALK 11:29, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Can you be more specific? For example, is your question about whether the Greek letter should be capitalised, or is it about the first Latin letter? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 12:58, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I am enquiring about a general rule. Initial Greek letters are not normally capitalised in chemical names in my observation, it's more about the Latin letter, but having a set rule would be useful. kashmiri ^TALK 17:58, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Galaxies, groups, clusters, and such

As discussed already, this 2006 edit to MOS:CELESTIALBODIES has advised us:

Note that traditional galaxy names are proper nouns. Therefore, all the words in the galaxy name should begin with capital letters. For example, "Andromeda Galaxy" is acceptable, but "Andromeda galaxy" is not.

and

1. Traditional name where approved by the International Astronomical Union and where this is widely used in general or professional literature (e.g. the Local Group, Virgo Cluster, Stephan's Quintet)

...

Note that group and cluster names are proper nouns. Therefore, all the words in the galaxy name should begin with capital letters. For example, "Virgo Cluster" is acceptable, but "Virgo cluster" is not.

But I am unable to find the backup at the IAU for this capitalization advice. Can anyone point me at it? And if this is their advice, why is "Virgo cluster" so common at site:iau.org, and why does lowercase still dominate in books? Dicklyon (talk) 17:43, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

The relevant page from the IAU style manual is here: IAU Style Manual, Trans. Int. Astron. Union, volume 20B, 1989; Chapter 8, page S30; I found the link here.

The initial letter of a word should be typed or printed as a capital in the following cases: [...] individual astronomical objects (such as Earth, Solar System, Orion, the Crab Nebula, Galactic Centre)

I would say that "Crab Nebula", "Virgo Cluster", and "Andromeda Galaxy" are all closely analogous: they are all the name of an object in which the second word is a common noun but the phrase is used as a proper name. One difference is that Virgo and Andromeda are both constellation names (in turn named for mythological people) and are thus proper adjectives anyway. Crab Nebula is so-named because someone once thought it looked like a crab, so if it weren't a proper name, it would be "crab nebula", whereas it would still be "Andromeda galaxy". But considering "Andromeda" to be the proper name of the galaxy isn't quite right, in my opinion, since there are many other astronomical objects named for the constellation Andromeda, not to mention the constellation itself. There's a reason Andromeda isn't a redirect to Andromeda Galaxy!

One thing I've learned in my experience as an astronomer is that there are a ridiculous number of naming conventions, and even when attempting to follow one convention, many writers and editors (including the authors of said conventions) often make mistakes. And the IAU is hardly a monolithic body (speaking as an IAU member, I think; can't remember if my dues are up to date!).

The first four links that show up on iau.org in the Google search you post are letters of intent for IAU symposia. Eg this one. That letter would have been written by the members of the scientific organizing committee for that meeting and certainly wouldn't have been edited by anyone at the IAU before being posted to the web site. If only astronomers had the money to pay for that level of editing!

Even IAU conference proceedings get very little editing in practice (typos from the submitted manuscript are rarely if ever corrected, let alone style issues that fail to conform to the in-house manual of style), so the style used by the authors often doesn't reflect the style guides. The refereed journals (like ApJ and MNRAS) have the resources to do basic copy-editing like this, which is why they're much more consistent with their own styles. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 18:26, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

So one scanned page from a forgotten 1989 style guide is what drives us to extend this advice to galaxies and clusters, even though it is rare to find a page, even at the IAU's own site, that follows such an interpretation? Dicklyon (talk) 18:31, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

It's not what drives me. What drives me is that they're proper names of particular things. And I disagree that it's rare to find a page; it's just far from universal usage. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 18:35, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

When I say it's rare to find a page at the IAU site that uses uppercase in sentences, I mean here is only one web page that does so. And one old scanned PDF newsletter that mixes it up even within a paragraph; everything else appears to be consistently lowercase. Unless you find more than I can. Dicklyon (talk) 18:52, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

This scholar search shows that MNRAS is not more consistent, but has about 60% lowercase "Virgo cluster" in titles. Dicklyon (talk) 18:36, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

"Virgo cluster" is consistent with its style for "Solar system". I agree that it doesn't appear to be as consistent with this as it is with "Universe" and "Solar system". —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 18:39, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

That's interesting that MNRAS mostly does "Solar system". The IAU mostly does "Solar System" on that one. I guess the MNRAS ignores the IAU in general and makes their own style? Dicklyon (talk) 18:55, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Yup, and ApJ has a third style. (An American/British English difference may be part of that, but not all.) This inconsistency is a good example of why I think we have a lot of freedom to decide what makes the most sense instead of trying too hard to follow sources. As I said, the IAU is far from monolithic; I don't even know (much less care) what their recommendations are in this sort of thing unless I look them up. They provide a much more useful service -- and one they spend far more effort on -- by defining conventions for the actual names of objects (ie the long phone number-like designations of astronomical objects without proper names, which need to be consistent), definitions of coordinate systems, and things like that that actually matter. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 19:04, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Good, we agree. I think we should remove the IAU from our naming conventions and MOS, and talk about how to make what we say there more concordant with our usual house style. Dicklyon (talk) 19:12, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't object, though I think let others have say too. I reverted your revert of my addition of the citation to the MOS because I think that, as long as the text bases the style on the IAU recommendation, it should be cited (particularly since this discussion makes clear that it's hard to find the IAU recommendation). —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 19:24, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I also think the IAU should be removed from our naming conventions and MOS, per reasons I give in the Solar System section above, especially WP:SSF. I have additional recommendations there as to how to formulate MOS language to make clear its intent to be independent of such single and/or specialist influences. Evensteven (talk) 23:51, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I would not argue on Crab Nebula, as it's way dominantly capitalized in sources, even though at least one guide suggests "Crab nebula". But when usage is mostly lowercase, and guides mostly agree, shouldn't we go with WP style and avoid unnecessary capitalization, rather than go with specialists who don't even follow their own advice? Dicklyon (talk) 19:03, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Maybe Wikpedia can do better than the specialists! :) MNRAS mostly styles it "Crab nebula", again consistent with their style. But I have trouble seeing the logic for "Andromeda galaxy" but "Crab Nebula", and even worse, "solar system". Not that inconsistent logic stops anyone else. And of course, not that the MOS will ever be consistently followed across Wikipedia anyway. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 19:08, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Sometimes it's hard to make the logic agree with the conventions; different guides try in various ways, and we can try in our own way, but striving for a huge consistency like Dondervogel was trying to do with Universe is probably not going to converge. Dicklyon (talk) 19:12, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Fair enough, but I actually think there is a convention here that agrees with logic, and all else being equal, I'll go for logic.

But really, in what way is Andromeda Galaxy not a proper name? I mean, Moreton Island is a proper name, and I've never seen something like that styled "Moreton island". How is Andromeda Galaxy any different? —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 19:22, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Really, I do think it's a matter of interpretation, which I think is why we don't see real consistency anywhere. "Logic"? Ouch. That term is too hot to touch. Different people often have different senses of what is or is not logical, and often illogical senses of it. How about "reasonable", in something like the American jurisprudence sense of the word, which defines "reasonable doubt" as a doubt for which there is a reason, a solid rationale that doesn't conflict with facts. It's the kind of thing that separates "speculation" from "scientific speculation". I agree that there's no reason we can't formulate one here, and perhaps (probably) outdo the specialists. Evensteven (talk) 23:51, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Celestial bodies - suspend edits

It is clear that both paragraphs are under close scrutiny at the present time. I acknowledge that bold revisions are a way of arriving at a consensus; however, in the present situation, they could easily viewed as vexatious and inflammatory, particularly given the relationship and timing to specific matters under discussion on this talk page. For these reasons, I would hope that editors would respect a moratorium on edits while these matters continue to be discussed. I would suggest no changes to the text version of Revision as of 23:47, 15 February 2015 (or some earlier date if this is not agreeable) except after clear discussion indicating a consensus as a minimum. The alternative would be to request a locking. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:22, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Solar System

"Specifications concerning designations for astronomical radiation sources outside the solar system" is the doc that the astronomers used back in '11 to make us capitalize galaxy in "Andromeda galaxy", and got installed as the IAU style to follow for celestial objects in general. Amusingly, it uses lowercase "solar system" in the title, which may have gone unnoticed when the section was later changed to recommend capitalizing "Solar System". Admittedly, many IAU pages do capitalize "Solar System", but this one is by people specialized to "sources outside the solar system", so they use lowercase for it. WP:SSF at work. This makes the IAU seem kind of flaky, doesn't it? Shouldn't we just follow our own MOS and avoid unnecessary capitalization? Maybe we can eventually work out a rewording... Dicklyon (talk) 04:15, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree, Dicklyon. Due to the inconsistency between, sometimes within, sources, our MoS should probably be explicit to some degree. "Avoid unnecessary capitalization"...it is rarely ever necessary to capitalize these contentious words, unless they're being used in a multiple-body context (i.e., moons of the solar system, universes of the multiverse). Does anybody have an example where "solar system" needs to be distinguished from "Solar System" (or "Solar system")? Xaxafrad (talk) 05:08, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't call the words contentious. Many guides agree with our MOS, and only capitalize Earth when specifically referring to it as a planet, in the context of planets. We live on earth, the sun warms the earth, and the Sun warms Earth are OK. The caps are only necessary in the context where other planet names would be. I could imagine a case where you'd contrast the Alpha Centauri system with the Solar system, but I still wouldn't capitalize system, would you? Dicklyon (talk) 07:29, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

@Dicklyon, I am curious as to how this document tells one to capitalise anything? Cinderella157 (talk) 06:56, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

OK, it's a long story. When I pointed out to Enric Naval that the IAU web page he was referrig to, this one on naming, use lower-case galaxy for Andromeda galaxy, he said that's not an IAU doc, that's just a web page, and pointed at the other one I linke above, which he says is a doc, and which contains "Milky Way Galaxy". And that's why we have Andromeda Galaxy as an example in MOS:CELESTIALBODIES still, in spite of all the guides that say not to do that. As far as I can see, the IAU doesn't actually say to do that, as the MOS claims; but the astronomers ganged up and put that into the MOS. You'd have to read the volumes of talk in Aug-Dec 2011 to understand. Dicklyon (talk) 07:29, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I am interested in exactly how: "follow the International Astronomical Union's recommended style", came to be included into the second paragraph of MOS:CELESTIALBODIES? I have been doing some research. I am trying to piece together the exact relationship between this edit and the associated discussion. I am seeing discussions about the capitalisations of names and references to the IAU but not discussion about specifically referring to the IAU in the MOS? Perhaps that is because I was kept up last night by the earthquake. I am seeing at least one statement to the effect of a long-standing consensus in the Astronomy project to follow the IAU but I am not seeing any archived talk on that page that confirms this.

Names of planets, moons, asteroids, comets, stars, constellations, and galaxies are proper nouns and begin with a capital letter ("The planet Mars can be seen tonight in the constellation Gemini, near the star Pollux"). In the case of compounds with generic terms such as comet and galaxy (but not star or planet), members of the astronomy project have decided to follow the IAU's recommended style and include the generic as part of the name and capitalize it ("Halley's Comet is the most famous of the periodic comets", "The Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy"), popular usage and default WP style notwithstanding.[1]

The above edit was made on Revision as of 21:39, 21 October 2011. There was a discussion prior to this (Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters/Archive 5#When is something a proper noun? dealing with issues relevant to this paragraph but the last entry was dated 08:28, 8 October 2011 (UTC). Can we fill in the blanks please. Cinderella157 (talk) 07:49, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

In looking at it, no discussion was really needed to add it since it had been part of our astronomical guidelines for 9 years and astronomical naming conventions for 11 years. Maybe it simply got plopped in for clarity after an edit war and everyone said duh... and let it stand. That's happened throughout MOS history. A discussion doesn't always happen nor is it always needed. We don't really conform to MOS, MOS conforms to either wikipedia usage or consensus. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:56, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

As I said, there was a long fight about this in Aug–Dec 2011, and the astronomers overwhelmed the debate and got their way, pushing their naming conventions into MOS. For a long time the birders got their way capitalizing their stuff, too, but eventually a big enough central discussion got their local consensus pushed back out of naming conventions and MOS, and we returned to avoiding unnecessary capitalization in bird common names. Could happen here, too. Read WP:SSF. Dicklyon (talk) 15:46, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

"Solar System" or "solar system" are never common names, so it's a different issue. "Solar System" is either a proper name (when used as the name of the planetary system around the Sun) or a common noun, full stop. "Meadowlark" is not a proper noun: capitalizing it as the common name of a bird is indeed adding a new, specialist class of words that should be capitalized, which is very different than capitalizing proper names. So I think the argument that we're trying to use a special capitalization convention for astronomy is flatly wrong. The way that specialist approach may be relevant is in the understanding of the meaning of the terms, since that's sometimes a little difficult to divine for those who aren't well-versed in the field. And that's why I think that treating all of these words as proper names when referring to the particular thing with that name significantly helps clarity. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 16:00, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Agreed it's not a common name issue, but it is a specialist style issue. The IAU style, and our extensions of it, do not represent normal usage or the guidance of most style guides. Also, just to be clear to everyone, Alex, you are an astronomer so you represent their viewpoint more than a neutral viewpoint. Dicklyon (talk) 17:20, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure how relevant Ashill's profession is here. We all bring valid viewpoints and we all bring biases according to our individual backgrounds. I am not an astronomer, but I agree with much of what Ashill has written on this page. In particular he is right to focus on whether a given word or combination of words is a proper name, while others would take us down rabbit holes. That is the key issue, whether for galaxy, universe, earth or solar syatem. Everything else is an unnecessary distraction. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 17:40, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Individual editors' professions aside, the issue is still specialist styles, for which refer to WP:SSF, the fallacy involved, and why it should not dominate the WP MOS. Regardless the origins of the IAF reference within the MOS, its presence there violates the policy that WP:SFF articulates, and should be removed. Evensteven (talk) 22:38, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Several thoughts on this:

1. The "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization" point distracting from the very simple question: is "solar system" (or "universe" or "earth" or "moon" or "galaxy" or whatever) ever used as a proper noun? If yes, they should be capitalized when used as a proper noun. No one argues that these words should be capitalized if they're not proper nouns.
2. These are edge cases in that some sources consider them proper nouns (at times -- I'll skip that obvious caveat for the rest of the comment) while others don't. Even if a source does consider them proper nouns at times, it's often a subtle distinction, making it difficult -- especially for writers who don't fully understand the meaning, particularly for non-scientific writers in cases like "galaxy", "solar system", and "universe", which includes many newspaper reporters among others -- to know exactly when they are being used as proper nouns or when they're not used as proper nouns.
3. However, I think that that confusion is one of the strongest reasons why it is important to treat these words as proper names when used in that way: there is a difference in meaning between "Solar System" and "solar system" which gets lost if the Solar System is treated as common nouns. This MNRAS abstract is one example.
4. I do think that "planetary system" and "stellar system" are both much better phrases to use for other solar systems. But the fact is that "solar system" is commonly used to refer to lowercase-solar systems, and treating the Solar System as a proper noun makes it unambiguous which one we're talking about.
5. My subjective impression is that "Solar System" is a more common usage that "Universe" (and "Universe" is already a common-enough usage that it's clearly an acceptable choice, though there's disagreement over whether it's the best choice), though of course neither is universal. As in Universe, the two textbooks I pull off my shelf (Zeilik & Gregory: Introduction to Astronomy & Astrophysics and Sparke & Gallagher: Galaxies in the Universe) treat both as proper names. From an abstract search for "solar system" in MNRAS and ApJ, The Astrophysical Journal treats both as common nouns. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society treats Universe as a proper name and Solar system as sort of a proper name "Solar system" (but "solar system" -- obviously appropriately -- when referring to other solar systems). In fact, there's a footnote on this very issue in the opening sentence of Solar System.
6. The long-standing Wikipedia consensus on "Solar System" is very clear, as this hasn't been challenged at the MOS level in 11 years. Consensus can change, but treating "Solar System" as proper name is certainly a valid choice (since many -- though not all and perhaps not a majority, but to me that's much less clear than with "Universe" -- sources do), so I think we'd need a pretty good reason to change such a long-standing consensus to make a valid choice. In the case of "universe", it isn't clear to me that there was any existing consensus at all. There was a fairly extended discussion of this in 2005 at Talk:Solar System/Archive 1, which resulted in a move to solar system. There was another discussion in 2006 at Talk:Solar System/Archive 2, which resulted in a move back to "Solar System". (Neither of these discussions made any reference I see to the MOS, though the MOS did explicitly specify "Solar System" by then, as noted above.) As of 2006, the IAU apparently recommended "Solar System", though the link mentioned is dead. (One of the editors involved in that discussion, Serendipodous, is still an active editor of Solar System.) I don't see any discussion of this there since then (searches of the Talk:Solar System archives for "capitalization" and "capitalisation" only turn up results on the first two archive pages), which strikes me as a pretty strong indicator of consensus.
7. Some have mentioned that the fact that we say "the" makes the following name a common noun, eg "the universe", "the solar system", "the earth" (while I think very few dispute that "Earth" is a proper name when used without "the"). But that's inconsistent with plenty of other proper names: "the United States of America" and "the Red Sox" for example.
8. Because all of these words are treated as proper names by some sources but not by others, I'm coming around to the view that it may be best to have a list of ambiguous words and whether Wikipedia ever considers them proper names. But I'm wishy-washy on that.
9. None of this was an issue until one relatively new, eager editor (Tetra quark, who is incidentally now blocked for edit warring with me and others on a different topic) took a consensus at WT:WikiProject Astronomy on "Universe", way over-interpreted its breadth (in good faith), and misused AWB to change hundreds of pages after a <24 hour discussion that involved only a handful of editors (albeit with no opposition to the view that "Universe" can be a proper name). And I'm still not sure this is really an issue outside of MOS-land. It's not uncommon for well-intentioned new editors to be a bit overeager like this, and I think this whole discussion may be an overreaction.

—Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 15:49, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

In this 2006 edit (in a galaxy far far away, off in specialized naming convetions that only astronomers ever look at), we got the advice that "'Andromeda Galaxy' is acceptable, but 'Andromeda galaxy' is not" appended to the advice to use IAU conventions. Yet the IAU page on naming conventions uses "Andromeda galaxy". And we also got the copy-paste error that nobody noticed in 9 years and stands today, where similar advice was added about clusters. Dicklyon (talk) 16:01, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

The question of whether these generic words are to be considered as part of the proper name or not, or be capitalized or not, is something that many style guides take up; ours can, too. A complete list is not the answer. Dicklyon (talk) 16:01, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

And please note that the abstract you cite for the difference in meaning by capitalizing "Solar System" actually uses "Solar system", which is what I had said I would do, if writing my own paper, if I needed to distinguish the system around Sol from the system around other stars. Capitalizing system there would only dilute the relevant distinction. Dicklyon (talk) 16:06, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

As I said, "Solar system" is the MNRAS style. My point was simply that treating it as a proper name adds clarity, since it really is used as a proper noun with a distinct meaning from the common noun version. (And no matter what you wrote in your own paper, the MNRAS or ApJ typesetters would likely change it to the in-house style, though they do occasionally make mistakes and miss things like this.) And calling the Sun "Sol" is something that has been proposed, but is not common practice (outside of science fiction) in astronomy or non-astronomy writing or speech, so "solar" isn't commonly used as a proper adjective; that's why I don't think "Solar system" is a great alternative. See footnote a in Sun. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 16:16, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree about the overreaction to the Universe flare-up, which is why I resisted adding anything about it to the MOS. Not every word we argue about needs to end up in the MOS. Dicklyon (talk) 16:13, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

"Universe flare-up": quite appropriately named. I agree about word lists directly in the MOS, although it might be possible in a note or addendum to address at least some of those that have been discussed, with decisions made, a kind of "special problems" consideration.

I also think the current MOS needs changing (specifically in the Celestial Bodies section), to remove direction based upon specialist styles, such as that discussed in WP:SSF. Usage of the IAU and MNRAS ought not to be our sole guidance wrt the WP MOS, and it should not appear that they are. If we decide that the WP MOS is going to follow (or has done and will continue to do) the same capitalizations as those groups, then it should state simply what the chosen caps styles are. Reasons for the choice can be placed in a note or addendum, as can reference to IAU or MNRAS, but it should as a matter of course be made clearly explicit that the WP style choice is independent of those groups and not derivative. Everybody makes their own MOS choices for their own reasons, and WP is no exception. That is especially true when there is not uniformity within common English usage, as we have here.

I think proper names should be capitalized, and that the discussion in the Proper Names section of WP MOS does just fine in describing that. It's quite right that what there is not uniformity about the question of when something is a proper name and when it is not. Common usage is a questionable guide for that, as expertise varies, even among professionals (such as journalists) for whom writing is a key skill. Besides, not even expertise can resolve all questions. A language would not be useful if it were not capable of ambiguity and ambiguous constructions, and this question will always be open to entanglement in interpretations, where some alternates are all reasonable. It is important to note that technical expertise (such as an astronomer's) about whether or not a given item (object, body, etc) is specifically targeted in any given context, may not be enough to determine what the name of that item is, if the name is a proper name or not, and/or if it is compound or not. This is another reason why the WP:SSF holds and should be avoided in WP MOS.

Having said all that, I think it would be most beneficial to attempt a consensus about these astronomical terms, that explicitly overrides any former ones, and makes clear its bases for the choices laid down. If we are going to have consistency (are we, really?), we will need to recognize the lack of consistency where it exists in the world, and state how we intend to achieve it here. That includes some method or direction for deciding when this or that term is a proper name, and when it is a compound name. And I think it would be most helpful to state explicitly that other interpretations are possible, but that a limiting choice has been made. This approach ought to help to defuse some disagreements over WP MOS interpretation. What I am having difficulty with, though, is visualizing how that can be done while avoiding the "listing problem" mentioned above. Is a note or addendum enough to contain this burden of information? Evensteven (talk) 23:32, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Responding to @ASHill, statement:

Some have mentioned that the fact that we say "the" makes the following name a common noun, eg "the universe", "the solar system", "the earth" (while I think very few dispute that "Earth" is a proper name when used without "the"). But that's inconsistent with plenty of other proper names: "the United States of America" and "the Red Sox" for example.

I have made statements that might be 'misconstrued' to have this meaning but by saying 'misconstrued, I am not implying intent to misrepresent. I made a response to the proposition that universe (for our universe) is a proper name because it has a specific referent. The statements I made were to effect that a specific referent is created when the definite article (the) is applied to an appellative. A specific referent is a characteristic of a proper name but it is not definitive of something being a proper name. Furthermore, where "the" does appear in conjunction with a proper name, it does so as an intrinsic part of the name and not as the definite article. In text, "the" is (virtually) inseparable from the rest of the proper name of which it is a part. In a name phrase starting with "the", it may be substituted for a limited number of words such as "our". The new structure is no longer a proper name, since it looses its 'specific' referent - "Our Jack" is one of an unspecified number and this is implied even if there is actually only one (eg United States). Capitalisation is retained because it is related to a proper name but not in the case of "The City (being a metonym of the City of London) is our city" or similar cases. In general, in binomial names of which 'the' is the first part (eg 'The Hague'), 'the' cannot sensibly be substituted. My assertion was that, in the case of 'universe', the definite referent is dependent upon 'the' acting as the definite article and therefore, does not support the assertion that 'universe' is by any reasonable perception a proper name. Cinderella157 (talk) 05:01, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

How is there any ambiguity whether this is a proper noun/name. The article says: "AA proper noun is a noun that in its primary application refers to a unique entity, such as London, Jupiter, Sarah, or Microsoft, as distinguished from a common noun, which usually refers to a class of entities (city, planet, person, corporation), or non-unique instances of a specific class (a city, another planet, these persons, our corporation).". The Solar System is certainly a unique entity, not a class of entities, and so is a proper noun/name, by definition of the word. --JorisvS (talk) 10:50, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Every star has (potentially) a solar system. Every solar system is a unique entity but 'solar system' does not inherently have a unique referent unless the definite article or another restrictive device is used. The 'Solar System' is certainly a unique entity, not a class of entities, but only because the definite article is used and so is not a proper noun/name, by definition of the word. 'Dog', 'man' and 'ship' are all common nouns. 'The dog', 'the man' and 'the ship' all have specific referent but all are still common nouns. Cinderella157 (talk) 14:05, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

That's "solar system" a synonym of "planetary system", which is a common noun. However, when used to refer to our own planetary system, it is not. Compare it to "the City" as used for New York City (which is thus a proper noun), which is used alongside the generic "city" (a common noun). --JorisvS (talk) 14:57, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Or the Continent. OED: "the Continent n. the mainland of Europe, as distinguished from the British Isles." —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 15:17, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Nice theory, but sources don't agree. Dicklyon (talk) 16:28, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

As we've said many times, it's clear that sources are mixed on all of these (with, admittedly, certainly a majority certainly favoring "universe" and probably a majority favoring "solar system", though I don't really trust your Google Books searches as anything but original research -- need to read the context to see whether the word is used as a proper name). But we aren't bound to follow a majority of sources in the style guide. The point is that these words are used as proper names, so it makes sense to treat them as proper names.

Can anyone state a self-consistent rule that defines Long Island, Moreton Island, the Continent, and the Crab Nebula as proper names but the Andromeda galaxy, the solar system, and the universe as common nouns? Really, to me, it seems like a special rule for astronomy to treat the names of these things as common nouns, not a specialist's fallacy to treat the names of these things as proper names. Now clearly we could treat some or all of them as common nouns -- many sources do in their style guides and many writers do (intentionally or not) in the face of style guides that advise otherwise -- but I think the consistent approach is to treat all these names the same way, as proper nouns.

If we're choosing to follow the majority of sources and treat several specific words that refer to a unique entity (universe, solar system, others?) as common nouns and no one can suggest a clear rule, I see no alternative but to acknowledge that we're not following any consistent rule and simply list these exceptions in the MOS. If that's our choice, fine. —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 16:44, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm far from being an expert in linguistics or astronomy, but isn't the word "solar" derived from the name of our sun, "Sol"? Doesn't that make "solar" an adverb, or adjective or something? The planetary system which orbits Alpha Centauri would correspondingly being referred to as the Alpha Centaurian system, while Rigel possesses the Rigelian system. I apologize if someone else has already raised this point. Xaxafrad (talk) 19:08, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, solar is derived from the Latin word for "sun", "sol". (As far as I know, using "Sol" as the proper name of the Sun is a modern construction which is mostly used in science fiction contexts. Certainly in astronomy, the name of the star the Earth orbits is the Sun, and there is a much-more-widely-used word for other suns: "star".) Yes, solar is an adjective, but the word "solar system" is used as a synonym for planetary system as well as as the proper name of the planetary system around the Sun. I think you could make a pretty good case that "solar" is often a proper adjective like "Jovian" and should thus often be capitalized, but that usage isn't very common and isn't a fight I'm inclined to get into! As for Alpha Centauri system etc, that's not one I've thought about. I guess it depends whether it's used as a name. It doesn't roll of the tongue to me, probably "Alpha Centauri System" (S or s) is not generally used as the name of the star system around Alpha Centauri. Normally, one just refers to extrasolar planetary systems by the name of the star, probably partly because the star is always known long before it's known that there's a system there.

I'm really thinking aloud here; this question is not one I've thought about much (and probably not one we have to worry about much, since it doesn't come up often). —Alex (ASHill | talk | contribs) 20:27, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I would agree that Sol (and Luna and Terra) are mostly used in science fiction, but they are not modern constructs. All are in 1913 Websters, and the terms were being used as early as the 1400's. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:27, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Fyi, "sol" is Latin root for "sun", which is also why many languages use that or something derivative as their word for it. It's not that much of a stretch to consider it English too, as an alternate, though I wouldn't insist. Call it "familiar" to English speakers. Evensteven (talk) 01:11, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Changes made to MOS without consensus

I do not believe that User:Maunus should have made this change to the MOS until the discussion is closed with consensus to do so. I will not revert again, but making such a change was wrong. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:39, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

As I explain further above I made the edit before even starting the discussion per WP:BOLD, and because it is required to resolve a conflict of interpretation between a novel interpretation of the MOS and WO:CITEVAR. I assumed that since citevar is still in effect there is a consensus that the MOS does not disallow any citation styles, including those that use smallcaps. I think you shouldnt have reverted when there is a fairly clear emergent consensus (currently 10/3) that some version of the included text is necessary.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:53, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't think the citation issue is very clear. The plurality on that specific point seems to be a vote for "don't care/no opinion" with the remaining supports and opposes close to even. Dragons flight (talk) 20:15, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Here I think WP:CITEVAR trumps most of the opposing arguments and certainly the "no opinion" ones.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:23, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

This is one of the issues under discussion. No change should be made to the MOS unless and until a clear consensus to make that change has been demonstrated. It had not been when you first made the edits. It has not been now, since it's up to the closer, and no-one else, to decide whether there is now a consensus. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:29, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. Maunus should take a closer look at WP:BOLD: ... is best treated with common sense". Regarding changes to policies and guidance see also WP:PGCHANGE, and especially WP:PGBOLD: "Talk first. Talk page discussion typically precedes substantive changes to policy." Emphasis in the original. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk)

Come on folks... you are coming across like a bunch of school kids pointing at each other and saying "But he started it". No one did anything wrong here. We are allowed to be Bold (even on policy pages), so Manus did nothing wrong by being bold. That said, reverting a bold edit and asking for discussion is also allowed. So Peter did nothing wrong by reverting and asking for discussion. This is how things are supposed to work. Now... the next step is to engage in discussion (not childish finger pointing). Blueboar (talk) 23:29, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Did you miss the part about "best treated with common sense"? Just because everyone can freely - excuse me, boldly - edit even core guidelines doesn't mean that is good to do so. If everyone did so the guideline would become a churning froth of confusion. Restraint is necessary. Boldly editing can be annoying; insisting on a right to do so would be disruptive. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:11, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Nonsense. I used common sense. PeterCoxhead just used the rules. There is clearly a consensus for these edits, and the ones that have no clear consensus here are nonetheless sanctined by WP:CITEVAR, and the arguments that disregard WP:CITEVAR are invalid. If PeterCoxhead had used commonsense he woudl have left the edits in place, since now he has only created work for the closer.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:55, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

missing shortcut

I could have sworn there was a shortcut to the section on "The" - MOS:THECAPS. Was it deleted? This is not exactly the most pressing issue ever, but it was nice being able to refer to it that way in the edit summary. --Rosekelleher (talk) 16:36, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Using WikiBlame and going back some shows that "MOS:THECAPS" hasn't been in there for at least the last four years, searching all of Wikipedia only turns up this question, and looking at the wikitext of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Capitalization of "The" doesn't show any hidden link targets, so I don't think it's been there in that form at least. It might be a good idea though.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  18:49, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm feeling bold, so I just added it. MOS:THECAPS is now a shortcut as described above.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  18:55, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Exceptions to Small Caps

The current phrasing of the section suggests that all use of caps should be avoided. There are however several cases where it is perfectly acceptable to use all caps. One is in reference list for authors names where it makes it easier to pick pout the author names in the reference list. Based in a strict reading of the current wording some editors have no removed the ability to add small caps to author names in citation templates. This is in effect a violation of our policy that states that we have no house citation preference, but all systematic citation styles are welcome. Another example where is in linguistic interlinear gloss examples where it is standard practice to use small caps for grammatical glosses using the Leipzig glossing rules. The current wording is too categorical and should be changed to accommodate exceptions where local consensus requires small caps. If the MOS as it is now worded is taken literally I will be unable to write linguistics articles that live up to the international standard of notation. Other exceptions are quotes of text written in all caps, which should of course also be represented in all caps. I will add these exceptions to the MOS. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:32, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

The added instruction "All caps can be used when rendering quotations of texts that use all capitals or small caps" is in direct opposition to the existing "Reduce proclamations, such as those for the Medal of Honor, from all capitals." It also pretty much flies in the face of the the existing "Reduce newspaper headlines and other titles from all caps ..." It is confusing at best, and at worst a sea change. Wikipedia's long-standing style is to avoid all-caps text. You say "of course" as if that takes the place of establishing a consensus. Chris the speller ^yack 20:08, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

No, proclamations or titles are not quotations, neither are headlines. A quotation is a verbatim repetition of some text written by someone else used as an illustration of what the original author wrote. And it should be obvious to everyone that for example if a text uses all caps for emphasis changing that to italics or some other means of emphasis would break with accepted standards of scholarship. The MOS needs to state that this is of course an acceptable use of all caps.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:26, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Maunus asserts that "This is in effect a violation of our policy that states that we have no house citation preference." I'm inclined to agree, but I have issues with how this discussion is being conducted. The guideline (not policy) referred to by Maunus is contained in WP:Citing sources#Variation in citation methods. But there was an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 128#Which guideline for citation style? which did not reach consensus as to whether this page or WP:Citing sources controlled citations; all that could be agreed to was the two guidelines should not contradict each other. So this discussion should be an RfC, since the outcome might resolve an inconclusive RfC. Also, no notice of this discussion was made at WP:Citing sources. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:11, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

It is all right and fine that you dont like the way the discussion is being conducted, but the changes to the scaps parameter were made with no discussion or notification at all. I am merely trying to have some sort of community involvement. If an RfC is better then that is just excellent, let's make one. And also lets put notifications at all the rlevenat WP pages.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:28, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

For the record, Wikiproject Mesoamerica (of which you are a member) was invited to join the original discussion on removing the scap option in December but apparently no one from the project responded to the original request for input. Dragons flight (talk) 20:43, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Well that was good, but several of our editors clearly missed that. It was posted during christmas which may have been a reason, also the entire discussion seems to have lasted very briefly before it was implemented.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:58, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

• I have reinstated the edits which have by now been the collaborative work of three editors, myself, Kwamikagami and Erutuon - and which are supported at least partly by 10 editors in the discussion below and only opposed by three. Furthermore the edits are necessary because they in fact describe an already established practice, the use of small caps in bibliographies have been in continuous use since 2005, and no discussion has ever succeeded in removing them or WP:CITEVAR, so adding this addition simply makes the MOS conform to the status quo. The new thing is the interpretation by some that the deprecation of the small caps in article text also extends to the references - this new strict interpretation of the MOS text prompted the necessity for the addition of this text to the MOS. The addition therefore clarifies and codifies already existing practice, it does not actually create new rules or exceptions. And while I am the proposer it seems clear that there is consensus for adding at least some of the proposed exceptions, and perhaps even additional ones. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:31, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
  • You proposed three changes and the response has been mixed, so this is not a simple yes/no. And some responses have no other rationale than "I like it." --  Gadget850 ^talk 20:31, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Which per CITEVAR is enough of a reason to allow the exception, whereas "I dont like it" or "only niche styles use it" is not enough.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:35, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

RfC: Proposed exceptions to general deprecation of Allcaps

This RfC discusses the merits of this change to the MOS. The change introduces three proposed exceptions to the general rule against using all capitals. The proposed added text is:

• All caps can be used when rendering quotations of texts (not headlines or proclamations) that use all capitals or small caps for effects, where removing it would constitute a significant change to the original author's style or intent.
• In reference lists author names can be given in small caps, if a citation style is chosen that uses this feature.

  Example: Kipfer, Barbara Ann (2000). Encyclopedic Dictionary of Archaeology. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. ISBN 0-306-46158-7. OCLC 42692203.

• In Interlinear glossing of linguistic examples following the Leipzig glossing rules, small capitals can be used.

Respondents are requested to comment on three separate questions:

1. Whether it is a good idea to have additional exceptions for the deprectation of allcaps?

2. Whether each of the proposed exceptions are warranted, or if they should be modified, or if some should not be included?

3. Whether more exceptions should be added? User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:51, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

• Comment As proposer I consider the deprecation of all caps to be too broad, and to interfere excessively with the freedom of editors to choose citation styles, and representation styles in articles. Leipzig gloss (which uses small caps) is the defacto standard for linguistic interlinear glossing and has been chosen as standard by WP:LINGUISTICS, bibliographies with author names in Small caps has been the long accepted standard for bibliographies in WP:MESOAMERICA, and changing capitalization in quoted text (for example literary texts) is a kind of falsification of quotes. Therefore I think it is absolutely necessary that there be more leeway in the use of capitalization. I would personally prefer that the policy state that it is the choice of a given editor or local consensus when capitalization is permitted in a given context, but at least we need to introduce these exceptions to make the MOS conform with the rest of our policies and with common sense. Btw. capitals are also used in many systems for transliterating ancient scripts, to distinguish between the transliteration and translation. For example when transliterating Maya hieroglyphs capitals are used for logograms to distinguish them form syllabograms and phonetic complements. I believe a similar use is standard for Egyptian hieroglyphs. I note that a couple of users are opposing on aesthetic grounds, or because only some citation styles use small caps - this of course in contravention of WP:CITEVAR which remains in effect and allows users to use any citation style of their choosing even if deemed aesthetically displeasing by others. In effect such an argument moves toward the introduction of a house style by gradually disallowing certain citation styles. Other users object on procedural grounds - here I would like to point out that this feature has always been in use on wikipedia, and the ability to use small caps in references was only removed this week with changes to the CS1 template which had been discussed by only a couple of technically savvy users, without consulting with those who used that feature of the template or with the community in general. Surely this discussion, even if it could have been better organized, is a better alternative than no community discussion at all. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:51, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
• Support As someone who has been using smallcaps for author names for years, I wholeheartedly support this change to MOS. I support (1), it is a good idea, and supports the freedom of choice for citation styles within an article. I find it much easier to pick out an author's name when scanning through reference lists. For (2) I also agree, as for (3), I have no further suggestions. Personally, my main interest is to be able to reinstate smallcaps use in reference lists. Simon Burchell (talk) 21:13, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
• Follow the reliable, published sources I agree with the proposer that the deprecation of small caps on Wikipedia is overly broad. Wikipedia's practice is contrary to the practice of style guides for scholarly publishing that assign specific roles for small capital text in distinction from other kinds of text markup. The proposer's example comes from linguistics, a topic in which I also edit, and I must go on record as saying that I would expect a Wikipedia article on any topic in linguistics, or on any other topic for which standard reliable sources use small capitals, to use small capitals the same way the better sources use them. It is helpful to readers of the encyclopedia to follow tried-and-true typographical conventions that have been developed over decades. We should readily admit any exception that we can document with a reliable source as a general scholarly publishing practice. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 21:16, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

• Agree in part, abstain in part. The long-standing guidance at WP:CITEVAR that any consistent style may be used is effectively destroyed if the "Manual of Style" and its subsidiary pages are interpreted to apply to citations. The popular printed style guides such as those from the Modern Language Association, the Chicago Manual of Style, and "APA Style" contain many rules and some of them are bound to disagree with the "Manual of Style" and its subsidiary pages. Thus, the proposal is too restrictive; rather than saying small capitals can be used in citation reference lists, it should say capitalization in citations is controlled by the citation style chosen for the article. I also agree that if small capital letters in a quoted passage carry meaning, they should be preserved. I don't have any opinion about interlinear glossing. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:20, 16 February 2015 (UTC), modified 23:26, 17 February 2015 UT
• Comment. Note that I added an example of a small caps citation to the proposed text. Dragons flight (talk) 21:43, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

@Dragons flight:, I suggest you give a citation example that does not rely on any template. Depending on the outcome of the RfC, the template may be modified to act differently, which will be very confusing to anyone who reads the RfC months or years after it concludes. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:49, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

What template? I didn't use a template above. It is copied from a citation in use, so the ISBN and other elements might be superfluous to the point being made here, but I didn't use a specific template. Dragons flight (talk) 21:53, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I saw "citation book" and mistook it for a citation template. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:50, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

• Comment An additional exception should be included for examples of Latin and Greek orthography during the Old, Classical, and Late Latin periods and the Archaic, Classical, and Koine Greek periods. These examples are sometimes presented in uppercase or small caps, as in Ancient Greek phonology, Archaic Greek alphabets, Latin spelling and pronunciation, and Augustus (the note in the lede on his name). In early Greek and Latin alphabetic forms, there was no distinction between uppercase and lowercase, and letterforms were usually similar to modern uppercase. (To be more specific, Roman inscriptions frequently used Roman square capitals, which are almost identical to modern serifed uppercase, whereas handwriting used other letterforms like Roman cursive, which are, I think, the precursors of modern lowercase.) The best way to illustrate this early Latin and Greek spelling convention is with small caps or uppercase. — Eru·tuon 21:50, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

• Support the exception for interlinear glosses as well, and mild support for the exception for authors' names in refs. I have only used the citation style with smallcaps for authors' names outside Wikipedia, and it has something going for it, since it provides a further visual cue differentiating parts of refs, similar to the existing visual cues of quotation marks for chapter headings and italics for titles. — Eru·tuon 23:46, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

• Comment "if a citation style is chosen that uses this feature" This presumes that Citation Style 1 and Citation Style 2 are not styles in and of themselves. If so, then they are misnamed and all options should be opened to allow any sort of style to be formed with these templates. Thus if this passes, then another RFC should be triggered. --  Gadget850 ^talk 22:05, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Why is this assumed? Since we dont have a house citation style one is free to choose other styles even if CS1 and CS2 are considered styles unto themselves. (I consider them templates that should accommodate as many different styles as possible).User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:13, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

The templates have many advantages with respect to formatting and error checking. As a general rule, I think it is better that the templates are flexible and accommodate different styles rather than having people abandon them in favor of different templates (that also have to be maintained, separately) or manual entry of citations where inconsistent formatting and errors would become more common. Personally, I would be happy to abandon WP:CITEVAR and actually adopt a Wikipedia house style, but as long as CITEVAR is the rule I think it makes sense to keep the templates flexible enough to support a limited set of widely used variations. That way the templates that do exist can be maintained in a unified way. Dragons flight (talk) 22:35, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

But we self-evidently do have WP house citation styles, Citation Style 1 and Citation Style 2, and they are in fact styles in and of themselves. We've developed them specifically to forestall further attempts to impose any of dozens of major citations styles from off WP onto our articles by people who, due to school or professional familiarity, keep trying to impose them. The fact that our two styles borrow features from various other styles, which we've arrived at a consensus to include as features here because they are useful, does not mean we will willy-nilly import other features of external citation styles, especially when they've already been proposed and rejected many times, call-capping of author names being chief among these failed perennial proposals.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:06, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the CS1 templates are highly unstable, with constantly shifting parameters, so their use is becoming increasingly cumbersome. Simon Burchell (talk) 11:21, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

• Question "if a citation style is chosen that uses this feature" What citation styles use smallcaps? --  Gadget850 ^talk 22:10, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Many publications use small caps in bibliographies, and it is mentioned as an option in Chicago style. Here is an example of a publication that requires it the International Journal of American Linguistics[2]. The style sheet of the journal Language, pulished by the Linguistics Society of America requires small caps both for interlinear gloss and author names.[3]User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:13, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

• We have {{Cite LSA}} which after the three years since I renamed it is used only in two articles, and it does not use smallcaps.
• Chicago 16 §14.284 mentions Bluebook using small caps but "The examples in this section use a simpler style advocated by some law reviews, substituting upper- and lowercase roman type for caps and small caps."
• Chicago 16 §16.140: "If, for example, names of writers need to be distinguished from names of literary characters, one or the other might be set in caps and small caps."
• Chicago 16 §16.145 Notes the use of small caps in indexes which we don't use.
• Bluebook is represented by {{Cite court}} which does not use small caps.

--  Gadget850 ^talk 23:01, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

I may have been mistaken about Chicago style, but if the LSA template does not use mall caps for authors then it is not in fact LSA style which may explain why nobody is using it (I personally didnt even know it existed).User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:09, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

It was named {{Harvrefcol}} until three years ago which did not help. I only found it during one of my sweeps of cite templates. --  Gadget850 ^talk 23:20, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Ok, I have actually used harvrefcol. But combined it with a citation template that used small caps in the bibkliography.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:29, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

• Agree in part, abstain in part. I agree that caps may be used in direct quotations where they are appropriate to preserve the original author's emphasis, though they shouldn't be required for all direct quotes. We don't necessarily need quotes about "REALTORS®" and "TIME Magazine" just because added capitalization is the brand owner's personal preference. I don't have a strong opinion about the use of small caps in citations. I think it is a somewhat silly stylistic choice, but not dramatically more so than other allowed stylistic choices. Given that CITEVAR exists, and is unlikely to change, I don't really care whether authors names are represented in small caps or not. With respect to the use of small capitals in annotation (e.g. List of glossing abbreviations), I think that is probably appropriate in technical articles where small cap notations have been the standard in the field, though I don't imagine them being relevant very often. For less technical articles it is probably better to avoid notations that the typical reader may be unfamiliar with. I'm also not sure whether the statement should reference "interlinear" glossing specifically or "annotation" more generally. Are small caps only used as a form of annotation in the interlinear style? If not, then a more general statement is probably appropriate. Dragons flight (talk) 22:21, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Interlinear gloss is a kind of linguistic convention for annotating the analysis of grammatical expressions, but I agree that probably it is better to make a broader statement allowing it for all kinds of annotation where small caps or caps is the standard (e.g. transliteration of hieroglyphic text, and other annotation systems).User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:26, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

• Support an exception for technical fields (grammatical abbreviations in interlinear glosses; transcription of logograms in Egyptian, cuneiform, and Mayan; rendering Classical Latin and Greek, etc.). Not sure about emphasis in quotations -- usually that's best replaced w bold or italics, just as are underlined and expanded text (letters of the emphasized text separated w spaces, nowadays almost universally replaced w italics), though perhaps Maunus can give an example of a case where it would be good to keep. I think the MOS should head off arguments about whether e.g. TIME Magazine should be capitalized. Don't know about authors' names in refs. I've done that myself, only for it to be changed later, and I didn't particularly care.

For many of the tech uses, caps are not a stylistic issue: they distinguish meaning. The Mayan glyph BE may not be the same as the glyph be, the linguistic gloss ART is not the same as the gloss art. For Classical Latin, it is a stylistic issue, as monocase text could be written in all lower case, but a practical one: People might "correct" all-l.c. text by e.g. capitalizing the first word of a sentence.

Another sometimes important use is to capitalize surnames. Sometimes the surname is at the beginning or in the middle of a name, or may be more than one non-hyphenated name, and many authors find capitalization to be the easiest way to indicate this. — kwami (talk) 22:58, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Well I can't give an example off hand, but let's say that a modernist poet or author chooses to use capitals as a typographical device (I have definitely seen this done by some poets, with entire poems written in all caps) then we really have no business second guessing that artistic choice if we quote them. Or if an fiction author uses all caps to illustrate someone yelling, or writing in all caps within the fictional setting, it would also be messing with their intentions if we changed their choice of emphasis in the quotation. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:38, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I disagree. We don't generally follow stylistic choices in quotations. For your hypothetical about yelling, retaining the caps would serve no purpose, as our readers would not recognize it as yelling. I once read a novel that used different quotation marks for each character, so that you always knew who was speaking without the author ever having to say "and Foo replied ...". But it would not be useful for us to retain that convention in quoting the novel. For all your other exceptions, you have a clear reason. This case seems to be a solution in search of a problem. I don't think we should include it until we come across an actual problem that needs solving. — kwami (talk) 01:03, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

It is not only useful it is necessary. It is not a quote if you alter what was originally written by the author, then it is a paraphrasing. In literary studies it would be considered a form of falsification to alter this kind of stylistic choices. You also can't mess with James Joyce's punctuation just because the MOS says to follow Strunk and White. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:08, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Then you have a much larger problem, as our quotation guidelines specifically allow such changes. There have been several discussions on this, and AFAIK it is allowed by major style guidelines. For example, if a typewritten source uses underlining for emphasis, it is standard practice to replace it with italics. Sentence-initial capitalization changes when embedding a quotation in a text. When quoting Swift, we don't capitalize every noun. It is also standard to correct typographic and punctuation errors, except when extraordinary fidelity is required, as in transcribing ancient texts. I think you'd need to come up with an example where all caps cannot be replaced with e.g. bold or italics before we give that exception, or how are readers of the MOS supposed to know if their case is analogous? — kwami (talk) 01:14, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Ok here is an example, if for some reason we were to quote this passage [4], it is not possible for us to swap "Give me the keys, BITCH. He yelled." to "Give me the keys, bitch. He yelled.", without doing violence to the authors work. In my view there is a gigantic difference between changing systematic use of underlining in a typewritten manuscript to the deliberate use of caps (or punctuation) for artistic effects by an author. It is not up for us to second guess the author in those cases. (Changing Joyce's deliberate use of non-standard punctuation would be an outright literary crime) You simply don't change that kind of thing. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:17, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Okay, that's a good place to start a discussion. It seems reasonable, and could probably get consensus fairly easily. — kwami (talk) 01:22, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I think the point is that the MOS should not prohibit this kind of thing outright but simply make it up to an editorial decision and consensus whether a given case can or cannot use caps in a specific quotation. What I am advocating is flexibility and editorial freedom. So rather than keep a broad prohibition to avoid having "TIME magazine" then we make it up to editors on a given talkpage to decide how to represent caps in cases where there is any reasonable doubt.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:27, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Flexibility is good when we have good editors. The problem is that's not always the case. It's hard to write guidelines for all situations. I don't think it's a bad idea to come here to discuss new exceptions, as you have, rather than having hundreds of little walled gardens. — kwami (talk) 02:21, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

You're right, it isn't a bad idea to discuss exceptions here... however, that does not mean we have to explicitly spell out every exception that is made, in the text of the MOS. for one thing, there is no way to do so without ending up with a bloated guideline. We need to resist the temptation to engage in instruction creep. Blueboar (talk) 16:29, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Comment – I have a few reservations. One is that the vast majority of editors don't know anything about logograms or the Leipzig glossing rules, and don't care. I would strongly prefer to keep esoterica out of the MOS. If editors in these fields want to define special typgraphic rules for things like interlinear glosses, they should do so in the appropriate place and link to it from the MOS. I notice that nobody is complaining about the small caps in Interlinear gloss. So I doubt that there would be objections to such a style guide.

Another is that if we are going to start listing exceptions in the MOS, we should start with the uses recommended in Bringhurst. Things like abbreviations and acronyms in the midst of normal text.
Another is whether small caps will improve or degrade the on-screen typography of the encyclopedia. Bringhurst recommends appropriate letterspacing and the use of well designed small caps, which are different from shrunken capital letters. Obviously browsers aren't going to do that for us. But how bad is it going to look? Most users are probably using Arial or some other sans serif with a large x-height. Before encouraging wider use, I think we should look at some screenshots and decide if small caps are tolerable or not, when actually displayed on a screen. – Margin1522 (talk) 03:08, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

The point of including the technical stuff is that we are certain to get editors who insist on removing caps from interlinear glossing cuz that's what the MOS demands. We can certainly move such details somewhere else, but at some point scattered mini-MOS's become more of a hassle than they're worth. — kwami (talk) 03:58, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Comment OK, first about the typography, I like small caps and often lobby for using them, in print. But the small caps that you get from Word and browsers are a travesty. It is possible to do small caps properly on the web (e.g. here), but not on Wikipedia. If and when Wikipedia gets a mechanism to do them properly, then OK, but we don't have one now.

There are also bibiographic issues. Note that the LSA style guide says "Author names should be given in small capitals (if you cannot easily set small capitals, please leave them in regular font—do not set them as all capitals and/or in a smaller font size)." They want their authors to submit Word documents with the font properties of author names set to small caps. That is, set to a display property, like bold, green, or italic. But they want the original data to be "Jones", because that is what libraries and indexing services want. Note also in the other example, the International Journal of American Linguistics page. They do it like this: J<small>ONES</small>, which gives "JONES". Bibliographically this is terrible. We could recommend that editors use {{Small caps}}, which doesn't have this problem. But many of them won't. They will just start writing names and titles in capital letters.

{{smallcaps}}/{{small caps}}/{{aut}} is not a solution as it pollutes the template metadata. --  Gadget850 ^talk 18:15, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree. If we were going to do this, I think the best way would be to revive the "|authorformat=scap" parameter in the cite templates, which is how this discussion got started. That could be done with the "font-variant:small-caps;" CSS style in the Liberty Bell example that you found. With the style applied it displays as Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land. But if you copy it to a text editor, it reads "Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land". That's how it should work. – Margin1522 (talk) 20:02, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

About the interlinear glossing and ancient Greek, I really want to keep this esoterica out of the MOS. New editors are already complaining that our guidelines are too dense and hard to understand. If and when somebody starts messing with interlinear glossing because of the MOS, we can deal with it then. – Margin1522 (talk) 17:15, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Comment Perhaps the linguistic community at Wikipedia:WikiProject Linguistics could come up with a set of guidelines for linguistic examples, and the exception for interlinear glossing be listed there. Information on IPA and the significance of angle brackets, square brackets, and slashes could also be included, and a list of abbreviations for morphological, syntactic, and semantic terms. I'm not sure if something like that already exists or not, but creating subject-specific guidelines could allow simplification of the general guidelines. — Eru·tuon 03:47, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Generally support - I am not that convinced about use in references though. Such a practice, while not specifically excluded at citations, does go against the apparent intent (before edit) at caps, which was fairly limiting. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:51, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose reference lists author names exception. I have never seen this style in WP refs, and hope never to see it. The other exceptions I don't know or care much about. Dicklyon (talk) 04:16, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose small caps in CS1- and CS2-formatted citations. As Wikipedia has evolved, CS1/CS2 have become their own "house style" alternatives to other citation styles used in other places. These other styles, like APA, MLA, Chicago, etc., can be used in articles per policy, but it's about time that we recognize that CS1 and CS2 are their own styles. The templates like {{cite web}}, {{cite book}} and {{citation}} that generate references do so in CS1 or CS2 format, not APA, MLA or another style. In generating CS1- or CS2-formatted citations, these templates and their related style now follow the MOS guidance which has prohibited small caps in general usage. If editors want templates to generate other citation styles, then they should create {{APA book}}, {{MLA book}}, {{CMOS book}}, etc and other templates to affect citations of books in various styles. However, {{cite book}} should stay in the CS1 style. Imzadi 1979 → 05:56, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
• I don't have strong opinions on the quotation issue (which can probably be taken too far in obeying corporate marketing dictates about ALL CAPS for their important brand names) nor in citation styles (where I think the freedom for editors to choose different styles for different articles is a bit unfortunate, although if it were possible for readers to choose different styles in their preferences that might be a better thing). The technical usage for linguistics seems reasonable enough to me. But I'd like to suggest a fourth exception: post-nominal letters (as used in Wikipedia, usually only at the very start of a biographical article where we give the subject's name in full). Making these smaller than full capital letters is a standard way of making them less obtrusive and I think that's a good thing. They're not really small caps (letters that are grammatically lower case but formatted as smaller versions of upper case letters), rather they're grammatically upper case but formatted smaller than usual, but as it is now I think the policy can be read as prohibiting smaller formatting for them and I think that should be allowed. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:08, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
• Support – Although it shouldn't even be necessary to include the reference author exception, since the MOS (including SMALLCAPS) does not apply to references. On the other hand, since SMALLCAPS has been invoked as a reason for not allowing small caps in citations, it better to explicitly state this exception. Also per Dragons flight, CS1 should allow some flexibility in how citations are rendered. This flexibility makes it easier for editors to comply with CITEVAR and reduces the need for parallel sets of citation templates. Boghog (talk) 07:54, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose as worded – firstly the change to the MOS should not have been made before this discussion; rather it should have been proposed here and then discussed. I am opposed to allowing small caps or all caps in citations; it's unnecessary and distracting. There may be a few more cases where small caps could be justified, but each one needs to be discussed separately, not in some vague blanket discussion. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:08, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
• Partially support --  Gadget850 ^talk 10:57, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

• All caps can be used when rendering quotations of texts (not headlines or proclamations) that use all capitals or small caps for effects, where removing it would constitute a significant change to the original author's style or intent.

Support Example: Liberty Bell#Inscription.

• In reference lists author names can be given in small caps, if a citation style is chosen that uses this feature.

Oppose As best I see it only niche styles such as Bluebook and LSA use small caps (but the current templates that use these styles don't use small caps). Chicago only uses it for indexes and APA for certain chemical compounds.

• In Interlinear glossing of linguistic examples following the Leipzig glossing rules, small capitals can be used.

No opinion Not my area of expertise here.

• Support - The referencing rule goes without saying (as multiple citation styles are accepted, restricting smallcaps would be contrary to that long-established policy), the others make sense, and I rather suspect that there still more situations where having a smallcaps option would improve the encyclopedia. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:09, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

• On second thought, even this is still restrictive, as the Bluebook can require the use of smallcaps for the publication name as well. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:14, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

"Long established" would be two years. Module:Citation/CS1 was created in Feb 2013 with |authorformat= which was never documented on any of the template pages. A search shows currently 902 pages using authorformat=scap. Before the module we had {{Citation/core}} which did not support small caps. --  Gadget850 ^talk 22:56, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

WP:CITEVAR is as old as wikipedia, and that is what Philosopher is referring to, not the Cs1 template. Smallcaps have been used in bibliographies since 2005, it is not our fault that it took the developers so long to make a template that accomodates it (accomodaiton which they then promptly removed). Before 2013 we used an another parameter parameter to add caps to author names this was then removed and the scaps was introduced instead.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:05, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Maunus, that is what I was referring to. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 00:56, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Matter to be clarified - I had a look at authorformat=scap, and at the articles. Now, perhaps I missed something but it appears that the functionality of the authorformat argument in the citation module has been disabled. Is there any discussion regarding this and is it relevant? I perceive this is the catalyst for the discussion we are having here? Cinderella157 (talk) 03:12, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

It's a bit off-topic here, but the citation templates have been quite unstable for the last few months. User:Trappist the monk has been deciding that certain previously-widespread usages are mistakes, modifying the templates to forbid them, causing the templates to break. In most cases there has been discussion on a talk page that is only relevant for a subset of the templates, with users of other templates finding out only later. In this case I know of no discussion at all. I know of no instance where he has been willing to even consider or discuss backing out of one of these changes, and after I complained about previous ones he has explicitly stated that he is not willing to have any discussions with me. Sometimes bugs rather than intentional changes have been introduced, also breaking things, and are also not backed out until the next scheduled update, leaving broken pages around for approximately a month at a time. The roughly 1000 articles broken by this particular change are few compared to some of the other ones. So, with that as background: yes, this should have been a discussion on the citation template pages, but now that it's happened, nothing is likely to happen over there unless we get a clear consensus here to re-allow this previously-accepted citation format. Even a clarification that this guideline wasn't intended to apply to citations (rather than an explicit exception for this style in the guideline) probably would be too ambiguous to cause this change to be undone. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:58, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I would consider this background quite relevant. I have found the following: Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 7#Separator parameters and Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 7#Undocumented parameter? which are discussions. It appears to be a matter where relative silence was construed (not incorrectly) as consensus. However, consensus can change when the ramifications become more widely know - as would appear here. It is being made to sound like the citation module is not subject to the normal 'rules' of consensus. Cinderella157 (talk) 05:41, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Comment - I suggest that there are quite a few that would oppose the use of caps/small caps in references; however, I also acknowledge the longstanding determination not to specify a particular referencing style. Having said that, I would conclude, from what has been said here, we probably don't want to encourage the use of such styles either. I think that WP:BEANS is probably appropriate to consider in this instance. For this reason, I would suggest and advise against making a specific reference herein. As a solution and on the presumption that there is a general acceptance of the position I am outlining here, I would suggest going back to WP:Citing sources to clarify that the matter has been considered here and, while not supporting [optional if people don't like this phrase then remove], it has been determined that Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters does not preclude referencing styles that use capitals or small caps for author names or as another component of the bibliographic style. I would also suggest that this comment be inserted as a footnote. By this, it would be a matter of record but not part of the main text. I do appreciate that this is perhaps not as simple to do as it sounds and that there are certain niceties that need to be followed. This is a suggestion and I am not assuming support for this - it would need to be established. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:12, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

• Support for quotes. Here's Mel Lyman for instance: "I only knew that I was going to make this world a beautiful place to live in because I couldn't STAND it the way it WAS; the understanding of how I would DO it came with the experiences I had in TRYING to do it. I was going to bring heaven to earth or earth to HEAVEN, however you want to look at it and let me explain NOW what I only SENSED then" (he wrote like that a lot, God knows why; IIRC Herbert W. Armstrong did too). I would not be in favor of de-capitalizing this direct quote, no. Has this been a problem? Have people been doing this? If so they should stop. I think there's probably already a rule somewhere (or should be) that says "don't edit direct quotes beyond common sense and necessity" that ought to be sufficient and override anything said here about but caps, but if another rule here would help, fine.

The other stuff is above my pay grade. Interlinear glossing, fine, OK, add that somewhere, not necessarily in the main body of the rule. Maybe a footnote or subpage. Citations, don't much care. I'm OK with people citing how they like, within reasons, so that's OK with me too I suppose. Let a hundred flowers bloom. Herostratus (talk) 13:02, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

• Comment re quotes Several comments above support using all capitals in quotes if the source does. This is not what the MOS says at present. MOS:QUOTE says Formatting and other purely typographical elements of quoted text should be adapted to English Wikipedia's conventions without comment provided that doing so will not change or obscure the meaning of the text; this practice is universal among publishers. For example, if the source uses caps for emphasis, then italics should be substituted. So this part of the MOS would also need to be changed if all caps were allowed in quotations. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:14, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

  Your statement "this practice is universal among publishers" is a strong one, and if true, is compelling enough for me. In the Mel Lyman example shortly above, I don't see the harm in replacing the unnecessarily capitalized words with bold, italic, or bold+italic formatting. I see a small amount of value for using small caps in interlinear gloss notes. But I don't see the value in using small caps for author names in references; I've never had a difficult time finding the authors' name when I wanted to know it. Xaxafrad (talk) 21:13, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Just to be clear, the green text is not "my" statement; it's what the MOS currently says and what is being disregarded above. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:17, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Well regardless, the statement is false. It is not universal practice among publishers to change one formatting for another, if that can be said to constitute a change in the authors original intent. It is only normal to do this if a typewritten manuscript adopts a convention such as underlining or caps simply for emphasis which the publisher then translates into the desired form of typographic emphasis in collaboration with the author (i.e. the authors intent was for the emphasis to be expressed in italics, which was simply coded with caps in the typescript). As a scholarly practice it would be considered quote falsification to change someone elses typographic conventions in quotes. So the MOS is simply wrong on this point. As for "not seeing the value" that is not really relevant since per WP:CITEVAR it is enough that someone else sees the value in a specific citation style. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:28, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Note the proviso, "provided that doing so will not change or obscure the meaning of the text". That was Taivo's point: sometimes changing from all caps might change or obscure the meaning of the text. (And why I asked for an example.) But formatting *is* generally adapted to the local standard: spaced en dashes vs em dashes, reversed quotation marks or other national conventions, changing indented paragraphs to spaced paragraphs, etc. None of those things are relevant to the meaning, and so are commonly changed without comment. On the other hand, when graphic fidelity is desired, a quote may even reproduce line breaks in the original places, but that's not the norm. — kwami (talk) 00:03, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Are we coming to the conclusion that all of these exceptions are already acknowledged either directly or indirectly? If this is the case, do we need to make these explicit in the body of the text? If we do need to make a record for clarification, would a footnote be better? Cinderella157 (talk) 01:19, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose as presented, per Peter coxhead's reasons. I would support the first and third cases, but they should have been discussed here first. Using smallcaps in reference lists is problematical, needs more consideration. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:16, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

More consideration, using Smallcaps in reference lists has not been considered problematical for the past 10 years where it has even been used in FA articles - so it is not as if it is some new thing that people are asking permission to do. In fact it is a right that has always existed and has only been removed now because some template editors took the MOS too literally and didnt realize that WP:CITEVAR clearly permits this feature.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:42, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, see rongorongo and decipherment of rongorongo, which both went through a long and arduous FA confirmation. I don't think the caps in the refs were ever even mentioned. — kwami (talk) 00:03, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

By "more consideration" I mean deeper than a few comments here. Use of smallcaps in reference lists should be discussed in a venue more particularly relevant to such use, such as WP:CS. Also, you have over-interpretedWP:CITEVAR: it provides guidance, not rights, and certainly grants no "right" to use all-caps. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:20, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Please explain in what way the guidance in WP:CITEVAR is compatible with disallowing the use of reference styles that use smallcaps for author names. On wikipedia there is no such thing as "deeper consideration" than a widely publicized RfC.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 23:18, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• Partial support - All caps can be used when rendering quotations of texts...... Undecided on remaining two as I have concerns about consistency. Atsme☯^Consult 13:45, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

The last is necessary, and has long-standing consensus, as transcriptions without caps would be wrong. It's not a matter of style, but of meaning, as with acronyms. If "art" and "ART" have two different meanings, we cannot change one into the other. I clarified in the lead that the proscription is about the stylistic use of all caps. — kwami (talk) 18:30, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

That was a good point, and maybe the basis for a consensus here. There is a lot of support for ALL CAPS when they are (arguably) semantically significant. Small caps for author names gets less support because it's a matter of style. Semantically the rongorongo cites are just the same as before, small caps or not. (And BTW they still look great to me – I really like those hanging indents.) – Margin1522 (talk) 00:00, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose references list case; WP has it own citation styles. It does not (and does not need to) attempt to emulate others. That style has been proposed many times here (and at WP:CITE, and Template talk:Cite, and Help talk:Citation Style 1, etc., etc.) and rejected consistently. Oppose "original author's style or intent" case, as overbroad; "for effects" is too vague (and ungrammatical – the expression is "for effect"), and "the original author's style or intent" is tautological and all-encompassing, such that we would always and without exception use the caps because the original author did. Maybe there is the germ of some kind of valid point in there, but it's not been expressed in a way MOS can implement. Tentative support of Leipzig glossing rules case, but only as a separate proposal, with substantial input from WikiProject Linguistics; just because a convention exists somewhere does not mean it is one that WP should adopt and promote. If Kwami is right (and I think this may be the case), then this change probably should be made, as it's not really a style matter, but a semantic one in linguistic contexts, that can be mistaken for stylistic (much like use of single quotation marks in glosses, and the asterisk to indicate extrapolated words and roots that are not attested). Mixing that case in here with two stylistic proposals is confusing and will not lead to a clear consensus. As for the other two, limiting "citation styles, and representation styles in articles" is much of the point of the rule against ALL-CAPS to begin with. MOS exists to provide WP with a consistent style, and this is by definition a constraint on editors doing whatever they feel like just because they like it or are more familiar with it. This is true of all style manuals.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:47, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

• While CS1 and CS2 were created on Wikipedia, neither one is the "house style". As WP:CITEVAR notes, there is no house style on Wikipedia. This follows the same principle as WP:ENGVAR - and the philosophy behind both of them is quite basic to Wikipedia. There is a difference between a "widely-used, locally-created" style and a "house style" and the MoS should always reflect that. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 18:22, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
• The Wikipedia MOS is different from other manuals of style because most other manuals cover both the main body of the text, and the citation style. You can tell Wikipedia's MOS doesn't cover citations because it doesn't provide nearly enough information to write citations. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:40, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

• Support and suggest additional exception for ancient/archaic languages without miniscule characters as described above by other editors. // coldacid (talk|contrib) 00:09, 7 March 2015 (UTC) // coldacid (talk|contrib) 00:09, 7 March 2015 (UTC) Summoned va WP:FRS; please {{Ping|coldacid}} if you respond to my comment.

RFC regarding capitalization in a title

Please see: Talk:Cypress Hills massacre#RfC: Article title Lots of edit warring back and forth on this one. I have filed a simultaneous WP:RM request, to gain wider audience... and to prevent editors from arguing that the RFC is "out of process". Blueboar (talk) 13:29, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Dot the i vs. Dot the I in a film title.

Please see Talk:Dot the i#‎Requested move 17 March 2015. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:36, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Unstandardised usage of the word "like" when used as a comparison

At some articles, the word "like" is unstandardised on whether it should be capitalised, or not. The "like" are sometimes uncapitalised when it is used as a form of comparison, and we have to standardise it.

Articles with the uncapitalised "like"

• Moves like Jagger
• Do It like a Dude
• Someone like You

Articles with the capitalised "like"

• People Like Us (Kelly Clarkson song)
• Walks Like Rihanna
• Love Me Like You Do

Thanks, Nahnah4 (talk | contribs | guestbook) 10:11, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Just pointing out that in the last example cited above "Like" is not a preposition but a subordinating conjunction (equivalent to as), so its capitalization seems to be in accord with the current wording of the MOS. Deor (talk) 12:10, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

@Deor: Huh? Isn't it the same? Nahnah4 (talk | contribs | guestbook) 07:26, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

@Nahnah4: What Deor is saying is that Love Me Like You Do has a subordinating conjunction: it has a clause after "like" (i.e., "like you do" has a subject and verb in it). In the other examples, there are nouns after "like", so "like" is an adverb or adjective. — Eru·tuon 07:35, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

@Erutuon: Oh my gosh, what the hell is this. But that means "Do It like a Dude" has the same clause as "Love Me Like You Do", but the "like" is still unstandardised. Nahnah4 (talk | contribs | guestbook) 07:44, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

No, no. You're misunderstanding. I know this is confusing; it's grammar. It's my thing, but maybe it's not yours. I'll try to make it simple.

Delete everything before "like". That gives you the phrases "like a dude" and "like you do". In "like a dude", there is a noun after "like"; in "like you do", there is a noun and verb. A noun and a verb is a clause. Therefore, "like" in "like you do" has "like" plus a clause. All the other titles have "like" plus a noun or a pronoun: "like Jagger" (proper noun), "like a dude" (common noun), "like us" (pronoun), "like Rihanna" (proper noun). Only "like you do" has a clause; therefore only "like you do" has "like" as a subordinating conjunction. A subordinating conjunction is something with a clause after it. — Eru·tuon 08:34, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

How the heck does one source something like that? Without me looking up the actual songs, if the song author wrote the title as "Moves Like Jagger" or "Do it like a dude", who are we to change the actual sourced spelling? Wouldn't it be original research to fiddle with what the songwriter penned? Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:27, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

@Fyunck(click) and Erutuon: Thanks, Erutuon for the grammar lesson. And for Fyunck(click), it actually cannot be ruled like this. Let's use this example. Taylor has a lowercase for "How You Get the Girl" and "Out of the Woods", while the others remain capitalised. While for "Welcome to New York" and "All You Had to Do Was Stay", the "to"s remain uppercase when obviously it is supposed to be lowercase. At her YouTube channel, all the "The", "Of" and "To"s remained capitalised, as all Vevo channels do that. So, we can't judge just from these info given. Nahnah4 (talk | contribs | guestbook) 08:52, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

When our titles are the titles of the original works... we should think of them as being essentially quotes. The rules of grammar are different when quoting. Blueboar (talk) 09:14, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Not according to MOS:CT. And in general, MOS:QUOTE says A quotation is not a facsimile, and in most cases it is not desirable to duplicate the original formatting. Formatting and other purely typographical elements of quoted text should be adapted to English Wikipedia's conventions without comment provided that doing so will not change or obscure the meaning of the text; this practice is universal among publishers. So (according to the MOS) the source's punctuation is irrelevant; we must follow the rules in the MOS. (Don't shoot the messenger!) Peter coxhead (talk) 11:12, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Very very odd that we wouldn't use the exact spelling of the author. It may have been done on purpose yet wikipedia would ignore the sources and do otherwise. Oh well, I don't usually edit song titles, and considering I like to go by what sources tell me, I'm kinda glad I don't. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:19, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree it is very odd. A title is quite different from a quotation.----Ehrenkater (talk) 19:32, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

@Erutuon, Fyunck(click), Ehrenkater, Peter coxhead, and Deor: So how do we stick? Nahnah4 (talk | contribs | guestbook) 11:26, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Note: Another article, Someone like You, is added. Nahnah4 (talk | contribs | guestbook) 11:32, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Is Christian, when used as an adjective, to be capitalized?

https://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Circle_of_Dust&curid=1205335&diff=652956738&oldid=652954774 claims, no. Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:52, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

That would include terms such as "Christian right", "Christian music" and others. Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:54, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that is standard English usage.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  03:51, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Fremantle Prison#Main Cell Block RFC

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Fremantle Prison#Main Cell Block RFC. Is "Main Cell Block" a proper noun – i.e. should it be capitalised? Thanks. Evad37 [talk] 06:13, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Here we go again ("like")

The last time an editor attempted to edit MOS:CT to make like an explicit exception to the guideline that prepositions of four or fewer letters should be lowecase in titles, I reverted and started this discussion, which, I believe, shows no consensus supporting such a change. Now the same editor has made a similar change, going so far as to alter the relevant item under "The words that are not capitalized (unless they are the first or last word of the title) are" from "Prepositions containing four letters or fewer" to the vague "Prepositions containing three letters or fewer, and occasionally four" and again appending a paragraph specifically about like. I think that such a major change of the MOS guideline requires an explicit consensus here and not just a perfunctory handwave at some isolated requested-move discussions. I've therefore reverted the change again. Any editor who supports this revision of CT is welcome to start an RFC here, seeking consensus for such a change, in accordance with WP:BRD. (As an aside, I'm not sure why it should always be me who starts these discussions, since doing so is usually the responsibility of the party who's been reverted.) Deor (talk) 10:23, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Is "like" ever a preposition? As in "A Town Like Alice"? I would regard that as an adjective. Maproom (talk) 07:55, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Like is certainly usually construed as a preposition in cases like the one you cite (see Wiktionary). If you construe it as an adjective—presumably modifying town—what do you do with Alice? Deor (talk) 12:40, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Consensus has shown time and time and time again that we capitalize "like" in proper-noun articles. I don't really know what else to say. Red Slash 17:36, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Then why are there move discussions like Talk:Moves like Jagger#Requested move and articles that treat titles like the ones listed at Someone like You? As I said, if you want to establish a consensus for capitalizing like, start an RFC here, don't just change the guideline on your own say-so. Deor (talk) 02:21, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Literally three people talked about Moves Like Jagger, and Someone like You (Adele song) treats it like a capital throughout the article, except for the title, which someone put up without any consensus. You want an RfC? Fine, let's go for it. Red Slash 04:16, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Code names/code words/cryptonyms in all caps

I was looking at the article on the Venona project and I noticed that Venona is sometimes rendered VENONA. I thought it might be an acronym, so I checked the first link in the notes, The Verona Story]. In the section titled "Envoi" (page 59 of the document, 61 of the PDF) it is mentioned that it is a code name chosen at random and is not an acronym. It is also interesting that the document rendered "Venona" in all caps in the prose, but only the first letter in caps in titles with rare exceptions. I have seen this all caps practice in other US government documents. I suppose it was done to ensure people knew these were names and not something else. If someone was told he was assigned to LAKE project, the person would know not to grab a map and look for a body of water named "Project".

So how should these names be rendered on Wikipedia? - Richard-of-Earth (talk) 17:42, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

@Richard-of-Earth: For lack of other responses, I would follow convention and capitalize 'em. Xaxafrad (talk) 07:28, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I think the government did it so it was clear it was a code name. Everyone else does it to look cool. However, It's not ruining Wikipedia, so probably not worth the bother. It most certainly is not as important as capitalization of totalities (or is it Totality). Richard-of-Earth (talk) 08:11, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

@Richard-of-Earth:, I don't know about all caps. Perhaps Italics, since it is a title in effect. There was a recent discussion/consensus at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 128#Style of operation names on formatting of operation names. It settle for the style: Operation Market Garden (ie initial caps only). Suggest notifying Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history of this discussion given the military flavour? Cinderella157 (talk) 08:21, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I will look at it. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 08:29, 31 March 2015 (UTC)