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Talk:Halley's Comet/Archive 3

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Latest comment: 13 years ago by Carcharoth in topic Requested move
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Haley

Latest comment: 14 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

is this related to Haleys comet? is THIS haleys commet? or have I just been spelling it wrong in the past? J (talk) 16:56, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It is "Halley's Comet". It is sometimes pronounced "Haley's Comet", but most astronomers pronounce it to rhyme with "valley". Serendipodous 16:59, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
The confusion in pronunciation arises from the name of the rock and roll band Bill Haley and the Comets, which was a play on words. Richerman (talk) 01:12, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Visibility Period?

Latest comment: 14 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

For how many days was Halley's comet visible during it's last passage in '86? And is there some sort of mean? Lazersnus (talk) 20:08, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm especially interested is the period(s) in witch it is visible to the naked eye. Lazersnus (talk) 20:12, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Halley was first observed, according to a search of Google News, on 8 November 1985 and disappeared some time around May 4, 1986. I don't think there's a mean; it depends how close the comet is to Earth. Serendipodous 21:51, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Giotto image

Latest comment: 14 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

The description of the file is clearly wrong and it is bad that the file was downloaded in this way and not to wikimedia. It is clearly stated on ESA site that this image as well as other images on the site are copyright-free:

The ESA material available from these pages is copyright-free and may be reproduced without fee, on the following conditions:

  • ESA is credited as the source of the material (images/videos etc.). Please include other additional credit information that is posted together with the material.
  • The images may not be used to state or imply the endorsement by ESA or any ESA employee of a commercial product, process or service, or used in any other manner that might mislead.
  • If an image includes an identifiable person, using that image for commercial purposes may infringe that person's right of privacy, and separate permission should be obtained from the individual.
  • We request that you inform us about the material you wish to use and briefly describe how it will be used.

For any further information regarding the ESA Science & Technology website please contact us at: scitech.editorial(at)esa.int

That is why it looks it could be used in full resolution. As I also wanted to use this image for the Russian version, I e-mailed several weeks ago to the given address asking about the possibility to download the file to the Wikimedia, but have not received a reply. The problem is how to inform them if they are not responsive. --MLGorodetsky (talk) 14:55, 10 June 2010 (UTC) --MLGorodetsky (talk) 14:55, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

From the above statement, it does not appear that you need a reply. It's a bit confusing, though; if it's "copyright-free", then how can they ask for any conditions?
One approach would be to treat the conditions appearing after "copyright-free" as simply polite requests that may legally be ignored (though certainly we would credit them, would not use them to endorse or mislead, wouldn't mind informing them, and it's my guess that there's no identifiable person in the photo). Then we would mark it as "public domain". Of course there would be no guarantee that a reuser would abide by any of the conditions, but if it's truly "copyright-free" then they can't enforce them anyway.
The other would be to interpret those remarks as a free license, and they would be almost good enough. We certainly allow free licenses to require attribution. The "identifiable person" bit is not a condition per se but more of a disclaimer. The "information" bit is specifically called a request rather than a requirement. I don't know if the one about not using it to endorse in a misleading manner, reasonable as it seems, can be worked in, though. --Trovatore (talk) 18:36, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I just cllicked on the link you gave to the ESA website and found this statement about copyright: "All material published on the ESA Science & Technology website is protected by copyright and owned or controlled by ESA or the party credited as the provider of the content, software or other material. Users may not modify, publish, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, reproduce, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, display or in any way exploit any of the content, software, material or services, in whole or in part, without obtaining prior written authorisation." So certainly not "copyright free". Skeptic2 (talk) 00:10, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Talmud

Latest comment: 14 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

While the passage in the Talmud does indeed appear (I had to correct the page number, and for those who read Aramaic you can find it at http://he.wikisource.org/wiki/%D7%94%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%95%D7%AA_%D7%99_%D7%90), the following footnote appears to be wrong. It links to the book in Google Books, but no results turn up for "comet" or "Halley". I've seen the connection between the Talmudic passage and Halley's comet in a number of other places, so a simple alternative source should be found. 89.139.233.230 (talk) 12:43, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Ref added. Serendipodous 20:05, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
Just out of curiosity, do you know of any decent academic sources that link Halley's comet to the comet that appeared over Jerusalem before the sack of the Second Temple? There are lots of references but none that I can find in accredited papers. It would be a great addition if I could get it in. Serendipodous 20:08, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Mark Twain

Latest comment: 14 years ago13 comments5 people in discussion

To the deleter: You asked why Mark Twain is related, and I told you why, and you still deleted it. Explain yourself. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:52, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I have a name. Per WP:CAT. TbhotchTalk C. 16:56, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Pages are not placed directly into every possible category, only into the most specific one in any branch. TbhotchTalk C. 17:12, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
I didn't remember your user ID by the time I got here. Talk to the user who posted it. Mark Twain wrote about Halley's Comet, comparing himself to it. I think it does belong. So don't revert it again until you get some broader discussion. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:14, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
So we should add Aristotle cat, becuase Until the Renaissance, the philosophical consensus on the nature of comets, promoted by Aristotle, was that they were disturbances in the Earth's atmosphere. ? TbhotchTalk C. 17:16, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
I've asked the other involved and named user to come here and comment. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:15, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
There can be no answer to such questions, only opinions. Mine is cats should help find articles and that Halley's Comet is not to be found on wikipedia via Mark Twain, i.e. the relation is tangential. This way, thousands of writers could be associated with the moon. Materialscientist (talk) 22:19, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Is there any particular reason you deleted it and then re-added it? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:22, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
And actually it's the other way around - Mark Twain being found from Halley's Comet. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:23, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Even more tangential .. Materialscientist (talk) 23:29, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
OK, so should Twain be categoried on this page, or not? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:35, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
I would, as the relationship goes much further than simply an essay, there is also the fact that he was born and died the years it appeared and even pointed out this fact: I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year (1910), and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: "Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together. Mark Twain. *shrugs* It's a relationship that is well established in popular culture. Soxwon (talk) 01:48, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
  • I would say, no, the page does not belong in Category:Mark Twain. Actually I don't think anything should be directly in that category, except maybe Twain's bio. It should be just a parent to the subcats, which all look reasonable. I don't think the cities or relatives should be in any Twain cat. --Trovatore (talk) 02:05, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

466 BC

Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Looks like several parts of the article need to be updated from this [1] Smkolins (talk) 15:58, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Done, by others and me DoctorEric (talk) 01:04, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Talmudic reference

Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

How is it okay to include in the lead to the article that "clear records were made by the Chinese, Babylonians and medieval Europeans of the comet, but but were not recognized as reappearances of the same object at the time"; and then EXCLUDE from the lead the fact that the comet AND its periodicity were mentioned in the Talmud, which even has a reference to the web-page with the according Talmudic tractate where it could be read, UNLIKE the previous "clear records" which don't have even ONE reference?

On what basis do the editors constantly remove the part about Talmud? Moreover, what constitutes a "clear record"? According to the rules of Wikipedia then, I should remove the part where it says "clear records were made by Chinese ... etc ..", since the assertion provides no reference at all, and instead uses vague language like "clear records". Where is the reference to these so-called "clear records"? And why is the only referenced assertion - the comet's existence AND periodicity mentioned in the Talmud - constantly being removed by what I could only call douchebag editors? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Luizgota (talk • contribs) 13:35, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Because the Talmudic connection is pure speculation. We have no direct evidence that the Talmud is referring to Halley's Comet, only a slight correlation. It is mentioned in the article, and that is enough. Serendipodous 13:59, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 69.180.42.176, 21 February 2011

Latest comment: 13 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

please allow elemetary school without access use this link thanku. a wikipedia user —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.180.42.176 (talk) 21:21, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Are you asking for the semi-protection to be removed? Serendipodous 21:24, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

How long will it last?

Latest comment: 13 years ago6 comments3 people in discussion

Surely there has to have been significant reduction in the total mass of the comet during the past 2,000 years. Has anyone made any guesses about how long it will physically last? I didn't notice anything about that in the article. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:09, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Comets are estimated to last for about 10,000 perihelion passes. But since orbits are always perturbed by gravitational, non-gravitational forces, and random thermal events like splitting, putting a number on it would be a wild guess at best. Some day Halley's orbit will be much more or much less than 76 years. -- Kheider (talk) 16:19, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Of course we don't know when the first of those potential 10,000 passes was. It's possible that it's still young, cosmologically speaking, and 2,000 years is just a blip. But eventually it will fizzle - break apart, crash into Jupiter, or the sun, or who knows what. Thanks for the insight. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:03, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
I also wonder if comets get "renewed" to some extent when they're at aphelion, maybe picking up some extra particles from the ort cloud or whatever? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:04, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
Halley's comet is suspected of being "cosmologically young" in the sense that it has not been in its current orbit that long. Comets may go dormant, but there is no known renewal process. Objects in the Oort cloud are spaced apart even more so than the asteroid belt. -- Kheider (talk) 00:44, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
Could start here http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1985MNRAS.213..103H At the time, Davd Hughes was criticized for overestimating the diameter if the nucleus, but in fact it was even bigger then he thought. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.210.25.73 (talk) 19:17, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Naming

Latest comment: 13 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

According to WP:NCASTRO -

For extremely famous comets which have no issues with disambiguation, these should be titled "Comet <name>", e.g. Comet Halley.

So why is this article named "Halley's Comet"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.77.151.230 (talk) 21:36, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

See talk archive 1. Uniquely among comets, Halley's most common name is different from standard, simply because it is so widely known. Wikipedia title guidelines demand that articles be named after the most commonly used variant. Serendipodous 06:38, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
Latest comment: 13 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

considered these to be of use to astrologers, whether or not a person considers their activities to be un-scientific Furkhaocean (talk) 16:38, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

I would like to see the links thought out more: 240 BC would need to link to 240 BC, 466 BC to 466 BC, periodic to List of periodic comets, and Jewish astronomers is a red link. I believe Wikipedia policy is to avoid needlessly linking dates in articles. -- Kheider (talk) 16:52, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
As long as we're talking about this, is anyone interested in converting the list into a proper table? Because I don't know how to do it. Serendipodous 18:17, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

Latest comment: 13 years ago115 comments18 people in discussion

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


Please note that this request-to-move was withdrawn by the nominator (18:18, 5 September 2011 post)


Halley's Comet → Halley's comet – Since this comet, like most, is widely referred to with lower-case "comet" (even in the form "comet Halley"), it should be lower-case here, per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters). Dicklyon (talk) 04:34, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Note that book n-grams indicate that the capitalized form becomes more popular in years when the comet is in the news, but the lower-case form is traditionally more common. And if you click through to some of the examples of hits on "Halley's Comet", it becomes clear that many are in titles and headings, and that the same pages have "Halley's comet" in sentences. Dicklyon (talk) 06:59, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

oppose. This debate was decided over at Solar System years ago. According to the IAU, the full title of any astronomical object must be capitalised. There's some debate over asteroid belt, Kuiper belt and Oort cloud, but not over this. Serendipodous 05:03, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
I was wondering if there was some kind of a project-specific style understanding going on. Can you point me at that? Dicklyon (talk) 06:48, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
Talk:Solar System/Archive 2#Move to Solar System. The link referred to has been moved. It is now here. Serendipodous 07:01, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
Wow, that IAU document is really rather weak. Nothing on comets, but it has "Minor Planets" capitalized; it does show "Andromeda galaxy", the other example that I was trying to downcase the generic part of and that Trovatore reverted. All I see is that the move of Solar System to capitalized form was approved. Neither the nearly-equal RM discussion nor the IAU document that it relied on seems to have much bearing in the present case. Ah, I see it links a PDF with a bit more. Still not very clear, but they do suggest capitalizing everything about their specific meetings and offices and objects, like many organizations do for their own stuff. In writing for the general public, that's not generally done. Dicklyon (talk) 07:18, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
Your statement is very misleading. The page says that this is a formal recommendation for the names of astronomic objects in general, and then links the PDF. the linked PDF says to capitalize the names of "individual astronomic objects" in all IAU publications. That includes the IAU circulars that are sent to observatories worldwide, where the decisions on official names are reported (hint: the official names are all capitalized and are all proper nouns. The official name is not "Halley" but "Comet Halley" with capital "C"). The examples in the actual naming guidelines all use capital letters. See also the difference between "a random page in IAU's website" and "the HTML version of an official IAU document".
I think that the Solar System RM is relevant. It shows that the names of astronomical objects are capitalized proper nouns. Your proposed move would make the name a uncapitalized descriptive sentence, which it is not. The closer said that the IAU's guidelines had a strong influence in the decision. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:10, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
really bad form, Dicklyon. Dicklyon made this edit one minute before coming here, and then claiming that this should be done per the MoS. I have no strong preference for which capitalization to use, but that's just disingenuous. --Trovatore (talk) 05:14, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
Sorry about the "form". I was trying to attract some discussion about the issue at the bottom of Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(capital_letters)#When_is_something_a_proper_noun.3F, where I linked a change to a guideline (Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Proper_names#Compounds_with_proper_names) in which I used "Halley's comet" as an example. Getting no response there, I figured I could see what people really think here. The use of "Halley's comet" is so common in sources, like in the Mark Twain quote that had been erroneously capitalized much later, that I figured people might be happy to see this article at least follow both sources and WP style more closely. What the guideline Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Proper_names#Compounds_with_proper_names says is still applicable, whether I fix the Halley's comet example or not. Dicklyon (talk) 06:44, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
The evidence seems to indicate the opposite. If it were a proper noun, it would be capitalized at least a great majority of the time, and it's not. Dicklyon (talk) 14:40, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
Britannica treats it as a proper noun. So did Mark Twain. And so do most of the books in a search on Google Books. Powers T 17:16, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
No, your evidence if flawed. Twain didn't write it down, but the contemporary reports on what he said all used lower case, as I already pointed out above. As for most books, wrong again; you're mostly looking at titles and headings, which is what the Google snippets prefer to show you. I linked the actual n-gram counts above; if you discount the titles and headings, lower case wins by a landslide; it still has a good majority if you don't discount titles and headings. Dicklyon (talk) 18:08, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
Well, your typing is flawed but I don't feel the need to bold it when I point it out. I will concede the Twain, but to me, the ngram you linked shows quite clearly the opposite of what you think it does. You can see clear spikes during the year in which the Comet made its appearance -- in 1835, the lowercase was most common; in 1910, the uppercase edged it out, and in 1986, the uppercase had a ridiculous majority. It's clear to me from the ngram chart that since 1980 or so usage has preferred the uppercase version -- which meshes perfectly with what I said above: in popular usage, it's a proper noun. Powers T 01:53, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment A decision years ago doesn't much matter. We change our minds sometimes.
Astronomical sources published since 2000, in their order of appearance at GBooks:
lc: Vogt Comets, North Astronomy in depth, Newcomb Astronomy for Everybody, Starry Night Discovering the Universe, Wakefield Halley's quest, Brandt & Chapman Introduction to comets, Leverington Babylon to Voyager and beyond
uc: Rauchfuss Chemical Evolution and the Origin of Life, Pasachoff & Filippenko The cosmos, Zeilik Astronomy
It would seem that common use favors l.c. — kwami (talk) 15:30, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
So we should redo every incidence of Solar System as well then? Serendipodous 17:17, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
That would seem to be more objectively precise: the system of Sol. Dbl caps is more like 'Our Home'. Either way works, though I'd favor the more objective variant. — kwami (talk) 18:10, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
Over-capitalization is indeed a widespread issue in WP, in spite of the clear guideline at WP:Manual of Style (capital letters): "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization." But we don't need to try to fix it all at once. If we can start to move toward consistency, based on a combination of WP guidelines and actual data from looking at real sources, that will be worthwhile. I don't know the right answer for Solar System because I haven't looked at the evidence, but at least for well-known comets it's pretty clear that WP style is consistent with common usage, so there shouldn't really be a problem. So far, I don't understand why people are so willing to push back with neither data nor policy on their side. Dicklyon (talk) 18:15, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
Please don't cut the quote short. It's "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization. Most capitalization is for proper names, (...)". This happens to be a proper name. --Enric Naval (talk) 00:29, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
Agree with kwami: common usage (not that it's the only criterion) favours lower case. Tony (talk) 01:57, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
Kwami, I tried to reproduce your search [2] (using quotes doesn't change significantly the result [3]), and, contrary to the experience that you reported, I found a majority of astronomical sources that use only the capitalized form [4] [5] [6] [7]. You also misleadingly cite Discover! Exploring the Universe as supporting your argument when it's actually using both forms. And you are listing Chemical evolution and the origin of life as an astronomical source, when it's actually about astrobiology. The books that don't support your position appear in my search among the ones that you cited, and I highly doubt that they didn't appear in your search. This means that your search had to have a majority of astronomical sources using the capitalized form. Both only in the first page, and in the first two pages put together. Your voyager book[8] appears in my search in the fourth page, to reach that book by order you had to skip over 4 astronomical sources, none of them supporting your position [9][10][11][12]. It is beyond belief that none of them appeared in your search or that you failed to notice any of them. Your comment implies that the books you listed were the first astronomical sources in your search, when evidence shows that they were really the first ones that supported your opinion. Hand-picking and misrepresenting sources to sway an argument in your favor is not the way to make an argument in wikipedia. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:10, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
That's a lot of work Enric. Thanks! Since you have done the work already I'd rather not repeat it. Please give us a simple list of the links to all the sources indicating those that do and don't use the capitalized form. Jojalozzo 17:39, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
  •   = Halley's Comet
  •   = Hallet's comet
  •  N = discarded
  •  ? = uses both

First page

Second page

Third page

Fourth page

Also, kwami appears to mistake three of his sources:

That's 8 books in uppercase, 5 in lowercase and 3 that uses both (updated per Noetica's comment, and updated after reviewing again every book). --Enric Naval (talk) 23:34, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Enric. I really appreciate your effort in putting this report together, especially since it's not definite support of your position. [I also liked that you chose symbols that expressed your point of view.] This is very helpful. Jojalozzo 02:03, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Hummm, you are right. I was using the images listed at Template:Tick, but there are more neutral symbols in Category:Image_insertion_templates. Changed, and lesson learned for the next time. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:45, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
Enric, those were the books that came up on the first couple pages. I probably threw in a discriminator like "astronomy" or st, I don't remember. I didn't link because it wasn't a systematic search and I didn't think it worth linking. You can assume bad faith if you like. As for the Discover! book, correct, but only barely. It does use both: 5 tokens l.c., including the bold header entry, and one token in u.c. I hadn't noticed at the very end. As for a book being about astrobiology, so what? I suppose I could have eliminated it per you objection and gotten even more lopsided support for l.c. – gee, why didn't I think of that when I was combing through pages and pages of hits to get the result I wanted? Nonetheless, I find your 'proper name' argument fairly persuasive, which is why I haven't caste a vote. — kwami (talk) 15:52, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

oppose As already pointed out by Powers, the capitalized form has become predominant in the last three decades [18]. Common usage uses it as a proper noun. Contrary to claims above, a google books search of astronomical sources published after 2000 shows a predominance of the capitalized form (see analysis above). --Enric Naval (talk) 13:44, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Maybe I'm not reading it right but the ngram appears show neither form predominating except in the 80's when Halley's was visible in the sky and we could expect non-scientific, unreliable sources to prevail. As you say, your analysis of the astronomical books search above is more trustworthy, but I find the presentation of it difficult to interpret. Jojalozzo 17:39, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
There are 3 rises in publication numbers, roughly coinciding with observations of the comet in modern times, after 1835, around 1910 and around 1986. In the first peak the non-capitalized name predominates, in the second peak they have equal numbers, in the third peak, when the IAU has already been created and has assigned proper names to comets, it is the capitalized name that predominates. For me, this means that the most common name has changed over time. If the differences between the names were due to more unreliable sources being published during the peaks, then the same unreliable name would predominate in all 3 sources, I think. --Enric Naval (talk) 23:34, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Supporting comment. As Joja points out, Enric's interpretation of his ngram is shaky indeed. Unfortunately, his very industrious Google search study is misleading and ill focused also. I'm not sure that we could replicate it, since the method is underdefined. In at least these cases the hits have been classified wrongly:

In these two sources, both forms are used (as a quick inspection will confirm). If we are interested in reliable sources, surely we will discount those that are inconsistent, including these two.

I did a Googlebooks search on {"halley's comet" intitle:astronomy} – the phrase "halley's comet" regardless of capitalisation, for books with "astronomy" in the title – with the restrictions "Books›Jan 1, 1990–Aug 28, 2011›Search English pages›Preview and full view". There were 107 genuine hits (you need to check the last page to arrive at this figure). I analysed the hits for occurrences of the two forms on Google's result pages:

Halley's Comet: 56 (65 – at least 9 that had title case in citations, etc.)
Halley's comet: 58

That's one way to do it more accurately, using the most relevant current literature that can be checked. In the absence of more focused guidelines for astronomical bodies, by current guidelines a move to "Halley's comet" is justified, and the evidence from usage in reliable sources has not been shown to count against it.

NoeticaTea? 00:15, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Argh, I mistook those two books. Fixed.
That's not "the most relevant current literature". You didn't notice a Mormon book of dubious astronomical value in page 8, which makes only one passing mention of the comet [19].
Looking at pages 3 and 5, I found three reprints. A 1861 reprint in page 3 [20], a 1832 reprint in page 4 Outlines of Astronomy, and a 1885 reprint in page 4[21].
And you don't mention any book that used both forms, but there are four of them only in page 3 (I haven't looked at other pages) A to Z of scientists in space and astronomy, Unveiling the universe: an introduction to astronomy, History of oriental astronomy: proceedings of the joint discussion-17 at the 23rd General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union, Introduction to Astronomy and Cosmology. The last one uses lowercase in the section title but uppercase in the text. Under which form did you put them?
Trying to cover superficially so many results only results in more errors, and in making your work more difficult to check by other editors. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:45, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Enric, just briefly (I have many things calling on my attention at the moment): I did not claim to have analysed beyond a text search of the Google result pages, and I did not claim to examine the merits of every source (including its consistency), or its original date. But I did present replicable results that were open to scrutiny. You have indeed been able to scrutinise them; but I wonder whether you do so in an unbiased way, setting aside any sort of selection according to bias. I said "that's one way to do it more accurately"; I did not say it was final, definitive, or exhaustive. Sure, three books turned out to be reprints, as you observe (only three, by the way?). Of those three, one was counted as using "Halley's Comet", one as using "Halley's comet", and one did not feature in my counts because Google showed only upper case throughout its citation ("HALLEY'S COMET"). Net effect on my counts: practically zero. What sort of different count do you offer from my search, based on your further unbiased investigation?
NoeticaTea? 02:25, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Four reprints, actually. There is a 1885 reprint in page 2 A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century. And the search more books of dubious or non-existant quality: in page 5 I found a self-published crackpot astrology book[22]. In page 6 I see a book written by a hobbyist astronomer, in a pay-to-publish publisher that sends the manuscript to one reviewer before publishing itAstronomy: Selected Topics, in page 6 another self-published book Astronomy for Beginners. OK, I am stopping at page 6. Your search is littered with flaws and inaccuracies, despite your claims. And in your post you presented it as "evidence from usage in reliable sources" in order to support a move. And your counting is obviously inaccurate, since either you didn't notice those books that use both capitalizations, or you grouped them incorrectly as using only one of the forms. Please try again and present accurate data (like I attempted to do above) and then we can talk. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:48, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
From your comment "one did not feature in my counts because Google showed only upper case throughout its citation ("HALLEY'S COMET")." I gather that for some books you didn't even bother to open the individual book, you just used the summary in the result page. No wonder that you missed all the books that use both forms. You said "I analysed the hits for occurrences of the two forms", but you obviously didn't do such a thing at all. You present a less accurate and more superficial research, littered with false positives and miscountings, while chastising me for making inaccurate research.
Not that my own research is flawless, I just found one self-published book on it. But it's way better researched than yours and way easier to verify, and I have updated it to fix the flaws that other editors found. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:16, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Enric, you simply haven't grasped the method, though I outlined it for you to read. It's no secret that I only analysed the Google result pages, and the text that Google shows there. I said all that. And it's not relevant that some of those are not reliable sources, or that 4 of the 107 hits are reprints. What I presented was a well-defined, well-focused, enriched but unbiased sample. That's one good use of Google. Anyone who wants to can, as I have made clear, replicate precisely what I did and analyse further than I did. Never mind what scattered individual finds you make among those hits: I asked, directly, what your count was from the data retrieved in my search, not what statistically irrelevant nits you can pick. There is a difference between a systematic scan of the whole set and a selection that ignores the method used to generate it. Did you even use exactly the same search, as I linked it above? Your mention of so many pages leaves me in doubt. Try again. NoeticaTea? 18:00, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Of course I used exactly the same search.... Fine, here you go:
capitalized 46 49%
uncapitalized 35 37%
both 13 14%
total 94 100%
discarded 13
There are 63% of books that use the capitalized form at least once (more than 6 of every 10 books). If the name was only a descriptive sentence, the capitalized form would appear only in a few sources. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:16, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
Odd. My count, along roughly the same lines:
capitalised 46 (47.4%)
uncapitalised 49 (50.5%)
both 2 (2.1%)
total 97 (100.0%)
discarded 10 (in 6 nothing was found; 4 were reprints)
My hits with both: Introduction to Astronomy and Cosmology; New cosmic horizons: space astronomy from the V2 to the Hubble. Which were yours? I suspect they are the ones I found that appeared to have only lower case in running text, but upper case in headings or citations. I did not discard the Joseph Smith piece, nor one that you call "crackpot" because of mention of astrology. If I did, the percentages would remain practically the same, since one capitalises and one does not.
What I wrote above still holds: "In the absence of more focused guidelines for astronomical bodies, by current guidelines a move to 'Halley's comet' is justified, and the evidence from usage in reliable sources has not been shown to count against it."
NoeticaTea? 13:41, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
These are the two you missed [23][24]. And your numbers are still off because you missed 9 additional books. I didn't note them down, and I don't really want to open 94 books one by one again. Noetica, if a book had uppercase in the titles, and the other titles had uppercased words, and the actual text used lowercase, then I counted the book as having lowercase. And, I am under the impression that you counted again as valid hits the astrology book, the Mormon book, and the self-published books. This would only be showed by re-doing all the work I made above, a pretty detailed list. But I already did that research, and I spent hours. Heck, I already spent hours doing these simple numbers. Noetica, I am not going to spend hours just you can't be damned to search books correctly. If you find my research unconvincing, then so be it. I think that other editors can read this discussion themselves and decide by themselves whose numbers are more likely to be correct. --Enric Naval (talk) 14:13, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Enric, I don't know what you mean by "the two I missed". The two what that I missed? For the rest, I have already explained that the inclusion of "crackpot" or taintedly Mormon books makes no difference to the percentages. (By the way, do you also reject Presbyterian and Jewish books? We could also reject non-scholarly or beginner's books, and improve the percentage for "c".) And then, I can report the books I found in each category, having kept careful records in an annotated Word file of 16 pages; if you cannot, why do you think your numbers are more likely to be thought correct? I don't want to put you to more work, but I do advise you to use time (yours and mine) more productively. Good research is reproducible, and can be backed up if it is queried. I may have made one or two slips, as you did earlier; but at least I could find where those slips are without going back to square one. NoeticaTea? 21:48, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Struggling with an inadequate connexion here, away from my usual place. I've checked the two that you mention as "missed", Enric. As far as I can see the first has "Halley's comet" dominant in the text, but has poorly edited captions. One of the two captions on p. 83 has "c", but the other has "C"; the caption on p. 87 has "C". There is also "Halley's Comet" in the text on p. 91, when the topic has changed to meteors. The second one you mention appears to have "C" predominantly in the text, but "c" in the index. These two were especially hard to track down, among the 107 examined. Re-assigning both of them to the category "both" very slightly favours the percentage for "c", as against "C" (and note my corrected positioning of those percentages above). For the rest, I don't know which ones you mean, so I can't comment further. NoeticaTea? 23:27, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
No wonder that your numbers seemed off. If you count hits that way, you can twist any search to say whatever you want it to say. --Enric Naval (talk) 23:41, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
My numbers "seemed off"? Nice try ☺! My research can be interrogated because I kept a record. Yours cannot, because you did not. What "way" are you talking about, in any case? Here's another presentation of the evidence, updated to include the two re-assignments I have just made:
capitalised 45 (48.4%)
uncapitalised 48 (51.6%)
total of all seemingly consistent sources 93 (100.0%)
discarded 14 (4 were inconsistent; in 6 nothing was found; 4 were reprints)
If on further investigation some are to be moved from "capitalised" and "uncapitalised" to "discarded" (because of their inconsistency), the figures might change a little. Which way would they change? We don't know. Same for moves from "nothing was found" to another category or subcategory.
NoeticaTea? 01:06, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Noetica, your classification rules are dubious, you are counting neutral sources as 100% supportive of the result that you want to demonstrate. As a result, your results are highly biased towards supporting your position. --Enric Naval (talk) 09:21, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Still with the unsupported slurs and pejorative assertions, eh Enric? What is this "100% supportive" that you attribute to me? How could the results I report be biased? Show where they are, and how. In good faith I show results from a well-delimited Google search (unlike the usual rough work we see in these RM discussions). You have no claim of substance against the replicable research that I present without obfuscation or evasion; so you resort to my classification rules being "dubious", just as my numbers earlier "seemed off"? You'd need to do better than that. You might start by retracting such errors as "we have almost two books that capitalize it as a proper name for each book that doesn't" (see below). Do you really think you can get away with such a claim? NoeticaTea? 16:24, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Support per Noetica. Reliable sources and WP policy outweigh popular, layperson usage. Jojalozzo 02:03, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
    • The article's own sources often (though not always) say "Halley's Comet". Unless you think those sources are merely "popular, layperson usage". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:41, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
      • Given that the sources are inconclusive (as you say) then we look to general naming policy which does not support capitalization. Jojalozzo 15:38, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
        • WP:LOWERCASE says to capitalize proper nouns. And I think it's common sense that articles should use proper nouns in preference to descriptive sentences that are exactly identical word by word. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:16, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
          • Proper nouns are determined by usage in reliable sources. Since there is no definitive dominant usage in the sources (as you and others have shown after significant effort - thank you), I propose we use the style guidelines. Jojalozzo 20:51, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
        • The style guidelines also supported the current name, until Dickylon changed. Once he had replaced the long-standing examples with ones that supported a move, he opened this move request. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:30, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
          • I am referring to the style guidelines that promote names with minimal capitalization. Jojalozzo 20:51, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
            • The very first sentence of that guideline says "unless the title is a proper noun". --Enric Naval (talk) 00:08, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
              • In case you didn't read my comment above: Proper nouns are determined by usage in reliable sources. Since there is no definitive dominant usage in the sources (as you and others have shown after significant effort - thank you), I propose we use the style guidelines. Jojalozzo 00:38, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
                • We have almost two books that capitalize it as a proper name for each book that doesn't. And almost all seem to treat it as a proper name even if they don't capitalize (i.e. the comet called "Halley's comet") and wikipedia capitalizes proper nouns. --Enric Naval (talk) 01:38, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
                  • From my perspective, "almost all seem to treat it as a proper name" is a bizarre stretch. By my reading "Halley's comet" is being used simply as a way to identify an object, like "Joja's car" or "Enric's user page". Jojalozzo 02:06, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
                    • Hummm, check this book that uses both formsUnveiling the universe. I don't see any difference of construction between the two forms. --Enric Naval (talk) 09:21, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
                      • I see "Halley's comet" many times in the text and once in the caption of a photo. One diagram caption has "Halley's Comet" which is probably a typo. I don't understand what point you are making. Jojalozzo 22:13, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
                        • Please click in "next" and scroll the pages instead of just looking at one page and then dismissing it. The capitalized form appears in a caption in page 83, in both text and caption in page 87, and only in text in page 91. How do you know that it's not the uncapitalized form that is a typo? As far as I know, in pages 82-86 it's using the descriptive sentence "Halley's comet" because it's talking about "Halley's discovery and the comet discovered by Halley", and in the following sections it talks about something else so it switches to the proper name "Halley's Comet". --Enric Naval (talk) 23:36, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
                          • I don't see any difference in the construction either. This book uses both capitalization forms to identify particular comets. Perhaps the comet section, the ort cloud section, and captions for various figures were authored at different times or edited by different people or typeset by different people. In any case it reinforces my contention that the sources are inconsistent and emphasizes the role of MOS capitalization in this decision. Jojalozzo 01:18, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment - There is a problem with Google searches and similar methods. Like other words "comet" can be used as a part of a proper name or as a common noun. Thus, it would be quite consistent to write "Halley first established the periodicity of this comet in 1706. Halley's comet [i.e. the comet associated with Halley] was at first unnamed. It later received the official designation P1/Halley [proper name = official designation] but is normally known as Halley's Comet [alternative proper name]. In many cases, only the author can say whether he intended a word as a proper or common noun, and he can indicate his intentions by capitalizing or not. However, it would seem normal to use the proper name as the article title. If the common noun were used, it would be more like a descriptive title. Publishing houses probably need to take account of the fact that the text may be copy-edited and set by someone other than the author, so they may adopt simplified rules or apply the rules without much thought (possibily to avoid the appearance of inconsistency). Similar considerations would apply to phrases like "the president of the European Union". --Boson (talk) 10:14, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Support — FoxCE (talk | contribs) 12:41, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Halley's Comet is a proper noun and should be capitalised. The original example of 'Andromeda galaxy' and some others are misleading. The galaxy is named Andromeda, thus 'galaxy' is not part of its name (struck - the word 'galaxy' is part of the name of the Andromeda Galaxy, in order to distinguish it from the Andromeda constellation, known simply as Andromeda). The comet is named Halley's Comet, or Comet Halley, and thus 'comet' is part of its name and should be capitalised per standard English language rules. Wikipedia's guidelines are not an exception to this standard, they support proper name capitalisation. As Boson pointed out above, a simple Google search without analysis will not help you distinguish between 'Halley's comet' meaning 'the comet Halley discovered', and 'Halley's Comet' meaning the proper name for the comet. Consider the sentence 'my dog is named Dog' in a similar light. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 23:49, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
    I was like minded until I saw a good number of astronomical papers containing "Halley's comet" (as Enric and Noetica have shown). I think it's very unlikely that there are significant instances where "Halley's comet" is being used to for anything other than the name of the comet. Jojalozzo 21:01, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
Comment: See the results of a search for halley's comet at OnlineStylebooks.com.
—Wavelength (talk) 01:22, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Thanks Wavelength. Those results support "Halley's comet", as does this from CMOS16 (current edition of Chicago Manual of Style; not that I always agree with it!):

8.137 Celestial bodies The names of galaxies, constellations, stars, planets, and such are capitalized. For earth, sun, and moon, see 8.139, 8.140.
 Aldebaran
 Alpha Centauri or α Centauri
 the Big Dipper or Ursa Major or the Great Bear
 Cassiopeia’s Chair
 the Crab Nebula
 the Magellanic Clouds
 the Milky Way
 the North Star or Polaris, polestar
 85 Pegasi
 Saturn
but
 Halley’s comet
 the solar system

On the other side of the linguistic pond, the New Oxford Dictionary for Scientific Writers and Editors agrees.
NoeticaTea? 01:57, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Noetica, why not cite the precedent paragraph:
8.136 Astronomical terms—additional resources
The following paragraphs offer only the most general guidelines. Writers or editors working in astronomy or astrophysics should consult Scientific Style and Format (bibliog. 1.1) and the website of the International Astronomical Union.[emphasis added]
About checking the New Oxford Dictionary, I already told you that it's outdated because it cites a nomenclature that the IAU doesn't use since 1995. This means that it's using the outdated text from the 1991 edition. Yet you keep citing it. --Enric Naval (talk) 07:34, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Enric, it is not the "New Oxford Dictionary". It is the New Oxford Dictionary for Scientific Writers and Editors, and as the title suggests it is a premier resource, published in 2009, for exactly the kind of article we are dealing with here. You keep saying it is "outdated" because it doesn't agree with a more specialised and highly technical resource that you think Wikipedia ought to follow, regardless of the context or the purpose of the article. When you keep doing that, I will keep making this reply.
As for CMOS 8.136, good that you took the trouble to look it up. I did not cite it because that is not where CMOS specifically calls for "Halley's comet" with "c". And we are not "writers or editors working in astronomy or astrophysics"; we are writers and editors working on a general encyclopedia that includes scientic articles, using general principles of punctuation and capitalisation of which those specialised "authorities" are usually unaware, for a readership that they are not concerned to communicate with.
NoeticaTea? 16:24, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Comment: See The IAU Style Manual (1989) of the International Astronomical Union at http://www.iau.org/static/publications/stylemanual1989.pdf, page S30, section 6.13 ("Initial capitals"): "The initial letter of a word should be typed or printed as a capital in the following cases: … individual astronomical objects (such as Earth, the Solar System, Orion, the Crab Nebula, Galactic Centre); …".
—Wavelength (talk) 16:08, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Yes, Wavelength. The IAU itself links various forms of its own rules, including simple scanned PDFs (no OCR); but as far as I can tell the IAU says here, after linking to the provision that you have just cited: "It is emphasized, however, that language conventions are the responsibility of individual nations or groups of nations. While the IAU is willing to help to achieve a minimum degree of orthographic consistency as regards astronomical terms, it cannot undertake to do so for all languages, nor is it in the power of the IAU to enforce the application of any such conventions." Before the text that you cite come these words (underlining added): "The use of capitals for the initial letters of words is much more common in English (and German) than in French. It is recommended that the following rules be adopted in both languages in IAU publications. [The initial letter of a word ...]." Wikipedia is not an IAU publication, and Wikipedia is by no means constrained to follow IAU guidelines for IAU publications, just as ODSWE does not follow IAU guidelines. NoeticaTea? 23:37, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
Noetica, thank you for your reply. I consulted the IAU guide to see what it said, and not to find support for a position. I had it in mind even before another editor posted a message alluding to it. I am willing to accept Halley's comet. (List of eponyms and Category:Lists of eponyms show variation in capitalization.) Still, we need to know what constitutes consensus.
—Wavelength (talk) 02:56, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Eh. I've seen sillier debates. At least this wasn't an edit war. Serendipodous 07:24, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
Comment: From my Google search for halley's comet site:http://www.iau.org/, I found (only!) seven results, including http://www.iau.org/static/resolutions/IAU1985_French.pdf, which uses Halley's Comet.
—Wavelength (talk) 21:06, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
Comment: For more information, editors might wish to consult Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects and Wikipedia:List of online reference desks/Science#Astronomy (520–529).
—Wavelength (talk) 21:10, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment - no real opinion yet on what capitalisation should be used (the names of other comets are more interesting, including the comets labelled 'Great' - see the article and list at Great Comet). But from what I've seen, writers shift seamlessly between capitalised and non-capitalised. They shouldn't, and some style guides do tackle the issue, but this does suggest that the results of Google searches and n-grams should be largely discarded. Best to summarise what the authoritative sources are doing and to not be afraid of concluding that those sources don't come down firmly on one side or the other (there doesn't always have to be a clear 'winner', but ultimately a decision should be taken and then people should move on after that, for a period of time at least). FWIW, I'd have no problems with Wikipedia following IAU conventions in this area - I would prefer to follow the conventions of a scientific organisation for science articles, rather than general style guides. Carcharoth (talk) 13:23, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose I’ve been an amateur astronomer for 40 years. Indeed, there is mixed use of “Halley's Comet” and “Halley's comet.” But when it comes to deciding what is most-proper, encyclopedic practices, one must look towards the quality of the sources. Best practices within this discipline has been to follow the lead of the International Astronomical Union. At the bottom if the IAU’s Web site, here, is a link to this list of deep-sky objects. It doesn’t have Halley’s Comet (it isn’t a deep-sky object) but it has Andromeda Galaxy, Barnard's Loop, and Antlia Dwarf. Moreover, this IAU search result for “Halley's Comet” returns this document XIXth General Assembly where discussion is made to “Halley’s Comet.” Please note also that I subscribe to the print edition of Sky & Telescope. It is a preeminent English-language astronomy magazine. They’ve always called it “Halley’s Comet” (as clearly carried forward to their Web practices too as evidenced by this example and this example). Given the extraordinarily clear convention in deep-sky objects to treat all parts of the name as a proper noun, and with a tip of the hat to what Sky & Telescope has long and consistently practiced, I think it is clear that this “Halley’s Comet” is the most-proper practice.

FWIW, this shouldn’t be about volunteer wikipedians trying to “save the English language from illiterate scientists.” The purpose of any encyclopedia is to educate its readership on a given subject and properly prepare them for their continuing studies elsewhere on that subject. We do our readers no service by having them run off and type up a college paper using a capitalization rule that is at odds with text books and what the college professor considers correct. We’re not out to Change The World©™®; we’re here to help ensure readers don’t run off and unknowingly flout conventions widely observed by the knowledgeable experts in the field—even if those experts are *wrong*. Greg L (talk) 03:57, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually, Greg, you can find plenty of examples of "Halley's comet" in Sky & Telescope if you look back far enough. It sounds to me like you are more on the "change the world" side, adopting the IAU's official position to try to get usage changed. From sources, it looks like they're getting limited traction, gradually. I guess if I was to advise someone writing a term paper, I'd let them know that if it's for an astronomy class they should capitalize it, and if for an English or history class, then lower case. It remains an open questin whether WP style should defer to specialist styles of organizations like the IAU. Maybe so, but I don't see a consensus for it yet. Even if we had that, it remains unclear whether they have an opinion on "Halley's comet"; they do use lower-case "comet Halley" on their timeline of "Near Earth Asteroids". I do see that NASA has been more consistent about using upper case, and I have nothing but respect for those scientists (disclaimer: I used to work for JPL on outer-planet probes); but their usage is not what WP style is about, I think. Dicklyon (talk) 06:27, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
How far is "back far enough"? Sky&Telescope already used "Halley's Comet" in 1984[25][26]. --Enric Naval (talk) 14:39, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Well, I didn't actually find "plenty", but the few that are in Google books, 1963 and 1980, are lower (except in an image label and their new "Halley's Comet Day". Dicklyon (talk) 17:24, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Well, the image label should be using a proper noun and it's capitalized. As far as we know, the text is using a descriptive sentence "the comet discovered by Halley". --Enric Naval (talk) 18:32, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
WTF? The one is in the image is in "title case" as is pretty common; that doesn't imply it's a proper name. The one in the sentence is "Halley's comet" referring to the comet, yet, the one that was named for Halley (not that he discovered!). That's the point. How do you manage to spin it backwards? Dicklyon (talk) 18:42, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Fortunately, "specialist style" is also "populist style", as "Halley's Comet" is nearly always capitalized by laymen. Powers T 15:50, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Evidence seems to contradict you. Dicklyon (talk) 17:24, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
I haven't seen any such evidence yet. Laymen overwhelmingly treat this as a proper noun, and for good reason. Powers T 21:36, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Isn’t Halley’s Comet the same thing as Andromeda Galaxy, Barnard's Loop, and Antlia Dwarf, Independence Peak, Rude Man, and HIdden Valley? Greg L (talk) 23:39, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

  • Further comment - maybe the focus of the discussion should be on generalities on how to handle comet names of the form "<Name>'s Comet"? Or any name that includes the possessive apostrophe. There are others, such as Donati's Comet (currently at Comet Donati) and Barnard's Loop. I tried searching through Wikipedia titles for ones that include <'s>, but it seems difficult to do that cleanly. On the other hand, there are only 276 pages with "comet" in the title, so it is easy to find all the comets at these titles. The others are: Lexell's Comet, Biela's Comet and Caesar's Comet. Unrelated is Goldbach's comet. Carcharoth (talk) 15:37, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
The Barnard loop nebula is a more complicated case, since sometimes nebula and sometimes loop nebula is treated as a generic. The forms with capitalized Loop are a large majority (maybe 80–90%), and nebula is about 50-50. But I agree that we should try to work it out for the comets. If you check in google ngrams, you'll find that all of Donati's, Lexell's, Biela's, and Caesar's are much more common with lower-case comet. So yes, they provide good support for what we were trying to do here, avoiding unnecessary capitalization of words that are generic. Dicklyon (talk) 17:37, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Hum, just Halley's Comet, ngrams shows a change of tendency in Donati's Comet, Biela's Comet and Lexell's Comet, with the capitalized form getting progressively more common. Caesar's Comet does show predominance of uncapitalized form but most books mentioning it are history books and not astronomy books[27]. Barnald's Loop shows predominance of capitalized and it does appear mostly in astronomical books[28]. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:32, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm not so sure ngrams help here. You need to know the context in which each phrase is being used. Carcharoth (talk) 18:42, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Sure, comet can be used in the generic sense, but here it is being used as a name. Surely that makes a difference? These are specific comets, single identifiable objects, that have been named. This is in contrast to 'names' such as the common name of a species, which should be lowercased (though some areas of Wikipedia use uppercase, such as birds) as there are many that have that name. It is the difference between individual comets and groupings like the Kreutz Sungrazers (that should be lower-cased) and are more like the Capped Herons. There are many individuals that can be called 'Capped Heron', and there are many comets that can be called Kreutz sungrazers, but there is only one Halley's Comet. In passing, I see that some animals are now lower-case again, such as Brown rat. It seems these things go in cycles. But do you agree that names for taxonomic/type groupings should be lowercased, while names should be uppercased? Another classic example is Space Shuttle. That capitalises the grouping of named objects. Ditto for Apollo Lunar Module and things like that. Each LM had a name, but the group name is also capitalised. You can have a lunar module, the Lunar Modules, and the Apollo 16 LM Orion. The capitalisation depends on the context in which you are writing. Carcharoth (talk) 18:40, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
guideline for fauna]: "Insofar as there is any consensus among Wikipedia editors about capitalisation of common names of species, it is that each WikiProject can decide on its own rules for capitalisation.". The naming guideline for flora says "There is currently no consensus regarding capitalization of common names in articles.". The chemistry naming guideline follows IUPAC's convention of not capitalizing any name or compound. Looks like each subject-specific guideline is free to enable its own rules.
Which brings us full circle to the starting point: the astronomical objects naming guideline says that celestial bodies have proper nouns and gave "Halley's Comet" as an example, and Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(capitalization) says to capitalize proper nouns. The proposer of this move changed "Halley's Comet" to "Halley's comet" in a related guideline without any discussion one minute before he opened this request [29]. A couple hours before he had inserted "Halley's comet" in the naming guideline for astronomical objects, replacing a capitalized proper noun[30], which means that he knew where people had to look to find the current consensus for comet names. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:40, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Many things are named without being capitalized. The question is what is a "proper name". The guideline for determining which is which is what's at issue. I liked DGG's "consistently capitalized in high-quality sources" or something like that. If we don't do that, we'll follow each specialist area capitalizing stuff in their area, even though general-audience sources don't. The Apollo lunar module is a good example, as it's majority lowercase in sources; if you discount the caps due to title case in titles, headings, and such, it's even more clear; just like Halley's comet. Dicklyon (talk) 18:51, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Maybe you could ask DGG what he meant by 'high-quality sources'. Some would say that specialist sources are high-quality sources. Anyway, sources differ, we need to get over that and not obsess about what we settle on as long as it is reasonable. In this case, both seem reasonable. And as for 'Many things are named without being capitalized', can you give examples? I think you will find they are not 'specific' names given to unique objects. There is only one Halley's Comet. There are millions of brown rats. Carcharoth (talk) 21:37, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
Actually, I was paraphrasing. What he actually said was "I think the best rule is that something has to be consistently referred to as a proper name by third party discriminating sources, for us to do so." Maybe he'll say more if he cares. Dicklyon (talk) 00:24, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Between Sky & Telescope (here and here) with “Comet,” as a vertical niche, specialists source (a preeminent one, no less) and The New York Times (here and here) as a generalists source (a preeminent one, no less), and—if we want to give any credit to the country that created the English language—The Guardian (here), I’m not sure why there would be any confusion as to what constitutes the best practices of most-reliable English-language sources. They all seem to be following the convention of following the advise of the International Astronomical Union and common English-langauge conventions for this sort of thing. Lassen Peak is uppercase “Peak” and “Hidden Valley” is officially “HIdden Valley”. Greg L (talk) 23:53, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Greg, if you don't see why it's an issue, you haven't been paying attention. There's no shortage of high-quality sources on both sides: [31]; on the lower-case-comet side these include Science, Nature, Montly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Astronomy and Astrophysics, Icarus, Reviews in Modern Astronomy, The Astrophysical Journal, etc. I don't know of any corresponding issue with Lassen Peak or Hidden Valley. Styles obviously vary, and I thought WP style was to capitalize only when sources do so consistently. Perhaps I misunderstood. Dicklyon (talk) 00:21, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Jeez; don’t shoot the messenger, Dick. Quoting you: I thought WP style was to capitalize only when sources do so consistently. No, that is not the litmus test. The decision here is not to capitalize *only if the sources do so consistently* (which, by implication, means if the RS aren’t consistent, then Wikipedia somehow defaults to not capitalizing). Uhn-uh.

Across all of Wikipedia, the standard is to follow the RSs. For various battles and issues, this basic principle has various flavors to make peace and fit the circumstances. Sometimes, it is “when a majority of reliable sources…”. Sometimes it is “When a clear majority of most-reliable sources…” et cetera. As I’ve pointed out now, the issue here is not to see if the RSs have mixed practices, and if they are not consistent, then to default to what which makes Dicklyon happy. As with nearly all these sort of disputes where there is finger pointing towards what ought to be considered RSs, one then looks to the quality of the sources. So what are the facts?

What with the International Astronomical Union having it “Halley's Comet”, it should be no surprise that my print copy of World Book encyclopedia also has it per the IAU. So too—as I’ve mentioned above—do The New York Times (for general-interest readerships) and so too does Sky & Telescope. And so too does Encyclopedia Britannica, here. With the IAU and Sky & Telescope calling it “Halley’s Comet”, that should be the end of it; those are the preeminent RSs on matters astronomical. And this article is about an astronomical object.

And I’m talking about modern practices, M’kay? I can see that Astrophysical Journal has it “Halley’s comet.” But since it was published in 1917, WWI hadn’t yet ended.

If Sky & Telescope has it “Halley’s Comet” and if that practice has the virtue of coming down from the IAU, then it’s done with; those two sources *define* “highly reliable RSs” as well as “most-reliable RSs.” Between that and the fact that two other encyclopedias (World Book and Encyclopedia Britannica) follow the RSs, that ought to have been the end of it. Strike that; this shouldn’t have been started.

In short, I’m looking for some sort of really compelling reason for why a handful of all-volunteer wikipedians who happen to be active discussing this issue this week ought to flout the practices of the two most-notable, most-reliable astronomy RSs in all existence (the IAU and Sky & Telescope) as well as the two most reliable newspapers (The New York Times and The Guardian) as well as the two most prestigious English-langauge print encyclopedias (World Book and Encyclopedia Britannica). Greg L (talk) 04:02, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Not shooting you, Greg, but said "I’m not sure why there would be any confusion as to what constitutes the best practices of most-reliable English-language sources" and I pointed out that best sources vary. If you want to pick the ones on your side as "best", feel free. But I disagree with your premise that for WP style "the standard is to follow the RSs". That approach is OK for content, especially when the RSs agree, but it's not so useful for style decisions, especially when they don't. Don't we have our own style? Dicklyon (talk) 06:11, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Yes, and that house style requires that we capitalize proper nouns. The question is whether "Halley's Comet" is a proper noun, and that's a question that can only be answered by looking to reliable sources. Powers T 13:40, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Right, exactly what I've been saying. But you have to actually look at sources to get an idea. If half of them use lower case, that's pretty good evidence that it's not a proper noun. Dicklyon (talk) 16:01, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
But, couldn’t one just as easily make the case that if half use upper case, that’s pretty good evidence that it is a proper noun? And then, if you include the totality of the quality of the sources into the equation (to see if what we have is truly a “reliable source”), wouldn’t that tip the favor in one direction? After all, there seems to be some awfully good company in the other half that consider “Halley’s Comet” to be a proper noun (in the same vein as “Hidden Valley” and “Lassen Mountain” and “Mariana Trench”)…

Like, the International Astronomical Union here, Sky & Telescope here and here, The New York Times here and here, and the The Guardian here. And how about the two leading English-langauge print encyclopedias (as if those matter), Encyclopedia Britannica here, and my personal copy of World Book.

I’m personally of the opinion that since the two most preeminent astronomy authorities consider “Halley’s Comet” to be a proper noun and so too do the two leading English-language encyclopedias, it probably is rightly regarded by us as a proper noun.

The use of lowercase “Halley's comet” can probably be chocked up to ignorance of proper astronomical conventions, which the Internet makes increasingly apparent with the rapid growth of grammar like “me and her” and “me and him” as broadband digs ever deeper into mankind’s intellectual brain bucket. When we get to quality, modern publications like National Geographic Picture Atlas of Our Universe, the professional editors (probably with journalism degrees) seem to exercise greater care. Greg L (talk) 17:08, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

  • leaning Oppose (though I wouldn't lose sleep if it were changed) to conform with how other unique celestial objects are capitalised. Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:30, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Withdraw my requested move. Since we're obviously not anywhere near a consensus, and we lack any good guidance on how to decide what are proper nouns, this is obviously not going to be easy like I originally thought. We can revisit it if we ever come up with any central guidance for such things. Dicklyon (talk) 18:18, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
    • I think the withdrawal is wise as there is clearly no consensus to effectively declare that “Halley’s Comet” is not a proper noun by moving the article (and presumably changing the article’s contents to make it consistent with the title).

      But I think there is a central guidance for such things. This speaks also to your earlier But I disagree with your premise that for WP style "the standard is to follow the RSs". WP:MOS and WP:MOSNUM contain precious little that was “invented here”; we’ve gleaned from the real world for most of what is there. When there proves to be a range of accepted writing-style practices and wikipedians are unable to arrive upon a consensus to embrace a particular one, WP:MOS and WP:MOSNUM often accept multiple practices. You don’t really think that anyone got anywhere on WT:MOS with an arguments that amounted to Forget what the pros and other encyclopedias do; I like this style, do you?

      It is not within the proper purview of Wikipedia to adopt a house style that flouts an English-language, astronomy-related convention that is observed by such highly respected reliable sources as the IAU, Sky & Telescope as well as the two most well-known English-language print encyclopedias.

      Why do I say that? It is part of Wikipedia:Five pillars (not a proper noun) that Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia. It incorporates elements of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers. And WP:RS addresses the issue of comparing the reliability of sources with this:

The word "source" as used on Wikipedia has three related meanings: the piece of work itself (the article, book), the creator of the work (the writer, journalist), and the publisher of the work (for example The New York Times, Cambridge University Press, etc.). All three can affect reliability. Reliable sources may be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both. The reliability of a source depends on context.

All of this “look to the pros” is to avoid having mere all-volunteer wikipedians who are engaging in a hobby from Trying To Change The World To Make It a Better Place®™© (a proper noun). ;-) Greg L (talk) 18:50, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Your position is noted. But your selection of which sources to look to, when they split 50-50 on the issue, is just your own preference. We once had (I think, but I can't find it) a guidance page saying that a name was to be treated as a proper noun if it was capitalized in "almost all" sources; I think that makes sense, since over-capitalization is so frequent in English, especially when interest groups such as the IAU write their own styles and try to get them into use. They've only had limited traction so far, but I agree with you that they've succeeded at least with Sky & Telescope and some good encyclopedias. Dicklyon (talk) 19:05, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Comment: I invite all participants and spectators to examine the article "Proper noun" (permanent link here), and to think about form and function.
—Wavelength (talk) 19:14, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Thanks, Wavelength; your observation that there is a Well, DUH-point to be made might have shortened this discussion. One of the main reasons I engage in discussions on Wikipedia’s talk pages is I typically learn more about a subject—or a lot more. Now I know much more about proper nouns. Greg L (talk) 19:25, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I also read the article proper noun today, and though not all proper nouns are capitalised most are, and I find it bizarre that people started to think the discussion was about whether this article is about an object whose name would clearly be a proper noun - as a unique and named object, that should go without saying. But maybe some are making the argument that this is a proper noun that doesn't need to be capitalised? And maybe now a lot of discussion has been had, some work can be done on the article, such as adding details of when it was first named after Halley, or at least quoting an early use of the phrase "Halley's comet" (earlier than Twain) and when the designation '1P/Halley' was first used. Carcharoth (talk) 21:40, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Since there was clearly no consensus to move nor any chance of one developing, and since the editor who motioned to move this article withdrew his motion (18:18, 5 September 2011 (UTC) post, above), I’ve removed the request-to-move tag (∆ edit here). If someone wants to keep the wikidrama alive on what is clearly a dead issue, please make a new motion to move the article in a new thread. When doing so, please be sure to use the Template:Requested move tag per the proper procedure. If there aren’t any objections, I motion we close this discussion thread. Greg L (talk) 21:37, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

No need to waste time on a motion. Just let the requested move close normally and everyone go and do something productive instead of arguing over whether the request should be left open or not. Carcharoth (talk) 21:41, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
Really? “Wasting time”??? Please don’t ride in atop your white steed, its nostrils flaring in the morning mist, and declare to the poor minions fighting in the trenches that they had been doing unproductive things when debating whether “Halley’s Comet” is a proper noun and how to discern most-reliable sources. Me thinks you blocket the sunlight for us all down below. Are you the only wikipedian capable of recognizing that which is important on Wikipedia and the rest don’t have your great wisdom? Your last post (…and everyone go and do something productive instead of…) was insulting and smacked of Posturing To Be the Great Leader®™© (title case, not a proper noun). Greg L (talk) 21:54, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflicted with replacement of archive tags) Have a closer read of what I said. I didn't say that the discussion above was a waste of time (it was very productive). What is a waste of time is you hatting the discussion, adding notes everywhere, and shutting the discussion down, particularly when someone reverted you earlier. The request has been withdrawn, but that doesn't end the discussion. Let the requested move close the normal way, or get someone to act on the withdrawal of the request. The discussion about naming can continue on this talk page even after any request is withdrawn. And for the record, I'm not on a white steed. I'm on a bicycle. You are the one that seems to be on a grey charger prancing around with flashy links to images and colour formatting and the usual rhetoric. Carcharoth (talk) 22:46, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

1986 closest approach to earth

Latest comment: 13 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

In the 1986 appearance Halley's closest approach to Earth was 0.42 AU.[32] Is how close Halley approached Earth in it's most recent visit worth putting in the article somewhere? Does someone want to put it in? -- Jozsefs (talk) 21:28, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

added. Serendipodous 21:54, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
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