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Capitalizing plain "finals" in prose of NBA Finals articles

I am seeking input on edits like these by Suburbain1. The word finals is basic English defined as "a series of games constituting the final stage of a competition". When referring to plain finals in an NBA Finals article, it's my belief that it is being referred to by its basic English meaning, and capitalizing to "Finals" is excessive if it's not preceded by "NBA". I've discussed this topic with them before (User_talk:Suburbain1#April_2020), but they have restarted with this type of capitalization without any further explanation. (To simplify matters, let's not argue about whether NBA Finals is a valid proper noun or not. Otherwise, consider if "the league" would need to be "the League" just because the topic is the National Football League.) Thanks.—Bagumba (talk) 09:45, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Per MOS:CAPS, this would fall to "unnecessary capitalisation". Even capitalising 'finals' in the title phrase "NBA finals" is unnecessary. "NBA" (if it were written in fill) is an attributive noun phrase that should be capitalised. However, 'finals' is not. Combining the two parts does not automatically confer caps onto all of the parts. It is a common misconception that it does. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 23:41, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
Except that "NBA Finals" is a proper noun as the formal name of the series, much as "World Series" is capitalized as the proper noun name of the MLB championship series. Just because something is uncreatively named by using a descriptive phrase as a proper noun doesn't make it any less of a proper noun. In other words, they are the finals of the NBA, and therefore can also be written as a combination of an attributive noun and a common noun, but that doesn't make the formal name any less of a proper noun. oknazevad (talk) 02:48, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
From a "theoretical" perspective, proper names are not descriptive; however, the MOS uses empirical evidence to determine capitalisation. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 06:52, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
"Otherwise, consider if "the league" would need to be "the League" just because the topic is the National Football League.) " This is the heart of the matter. We can and do often refer to "the league" in a descriptive sense and could just as easily refer to "the finals" in a descriptive sense. --Khajidha (talk) 18:15, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
Yep. This is exactly the same question as in the thread immediately above this one, and the thread immediately below it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:36, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

I've gone on a small spree de-capping "Chief Justice" and other titles when it is (I think) generic, using MOS:JOBTITLES and MOS:CAPS, but then I ran into Judiciaries of the United Kingdom. When titles are institutions themselves, it seems they get capped. Where can I find those instructions in MOS? Dleit Ḵaa (talk) 06:00, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

  • I hope whoever invented capital letters is burning in hell. EEng 18:30, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
    Turning in their grave, at least. In terms of MOS:CAPS, I think the criterion of "consistently capitalized in sources", or however that's currently elaborated, is still going to be better, and easier to decide, than any more theoretical approach. Dicklyon (talk) 03:02, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
    Thank you, both. Dleit Ḵaa (talk) 08:31, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
    Just to remind those who see these things as trivial, when the casing of the civil rights movement article changed it altered the meaning of the article as well. The page used to be about the properly cased Civil Rights Movement, which occurred from 1954 to 1968. When the case was changed the meaning was changed, and the recognized Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968), which was successfully organized and directed by the same limited number of people dedicated to attaining a set series of goals which ended legal segregation in the United States, no longer has a separate Wikipedia article. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:27, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
In the last 2 or 3 years, the push for de-capitalisation has increased. Was big-time opposed to it, but have since thrown in the towel. GoodDay (talk) 20:27, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
GoodDay, your corner man is the one who has to throw in the towel and stich your cuts up. During the comma wars I fought alongside some good editors, and we took casualties. Never have I seen a fiercer bunch of combatants, and the songs we'd sing while drinking at the Wikipedia Pub after each closed RM have since been recorded by many a garage band (who never did get out of the garage). But we prevailed. At least for fictional characters. So get off the mat, back in the game, and win just one for the Gipper gipper. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:33, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
There's only one song I've learned from the past on Wikipedia, since 2013. It goes something like this — "GoodDay drop the opposition & accept defeat or be reported to ANI or Arbcom". GoodDay (talk) 21:41, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
But did you yell across and ask them if they knew who Babe Ruth was? Randy Kryn (talk) 21:59, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
Wouldn't matter, for me. GoodDay (talk) 22:24, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Capping of bus stops at rail stations

"77 Arlington Heights - Harvard Station"
"111 Woodlawn - Haymarket Station"
"96" – does it have a title?

The overcapitalization of "Station" in rail station names used as bus route descriptions has been recently institutionalized through a template/module hack here and applied in edits such as this one by @Pi.1415926535: (and many others on 27 June with similar edit summary "update names"). I tried fixing the over-capitalization before I reverse-engineered what he was up to, but he is vigorously defending these changes (see edit summary here). He's got another over-capper helping to revert my fixes. Am I wrong that this is absurdly against guidelines? Dicklyon (talk) 01:54, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Dicklyon, it look like the article Alewife station is lowercase. So what is the impact of this module change? Just user interface, or does it impact the reader? If it impacts the reader, the display and the actual page name should be consistent. If it's only the use of the module, it's not really MOS affecting, per se. A discussion or RFC would resolve that.—Bagumba (talk) 10:09, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
If you look at Pi's edit that I linked, where he uses the template, you see capitalization in the template parameter showing up as capitalization in the article, piped to the correct lowercase title. If you try to fix it by using lowercase in the source template parameter, you get a redlink. The only way the template can be used leads to over-capitalization. That's why he did it, it appears. My fixes simply don't use the template, which is providing no useful functionality that I can see; but that got reverted by the both of them already. Here is a similar revert of my fix on another article. Pi has done a ton of these since his June 26 module hack. Dicklyon (talk) 18:24, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
And yes, I hope this discussion resolves that. Dicklyon (talk) 18:25, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
With Pi not responding to ping here, and Qwirkle declining to discuss, maybe we can just get back to following MOS:CAPS over their objections. Dicklyon (talk) 00:45, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
I will leave to others to decide whether “declining to discuss” reflects some lacuna in social skills, or is simply a lie, but this simply isn’t factual. Qwirkle (talk) 01:49, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

To make life easier, I added the correctly lowercased alternative aliases at Module:Adjacent stations/MBTA, so I can fix Pi's over-capitalization with simple replace of Station by station instead of having to go back to an entirely different markup. And then I tested on the list at List of MBTA bus routes. This seems like a workable approach; there are many articles left to fix, of the ones he added the capped Station names to on June 26–27. I'll get to that eventually. Please comment if you see alternatives or caveats. Dicklyon (talk) 00:49, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm working on these via the list of articles that link to capped MBTA Bus, using JWB. It goes slowly, as most of the work is still manual, fixing the case and dashes in various formats, trying not to mess up, etc. Reviews are welcome. Dicklyon (talk) 18:54, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

@Grk1011: in reverting a couple of my lowercasing edits, you noted in edit summaries that "these are the titles of the routes, not just the names of the termini" and "cap titles of routes per sources". This seems odd to me. These are numbered routes with descriptions, it appears to me. Why do you think these are "titles", as opposed to descriptions presented in title case? Dicklyon (talk) 23:01, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Surely "Alewife Station" is the proper name of the facility, just like Alewife Brook Parkway is the name of a nearby road, and "Station" should be capitalized just as "Brook Parkway" is. (And, e.g., as Boston Magazine [1], Boston Business Journal [2] and the Boston Globe do [3].)

To the extent that capitalization matters in life, it seems that at the very least, this isn't a resolved question. XOR'easter (talk) 23:18, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

We don't generally cap "station", because sources often don't. See Alewife station and WP:USSTATION. Anyway, he was making a different point. And did you really mean to link to "IQHQ plans office, lab campus near Cambridge’s Alewife station"? Dicklyon (talk) 23:27, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
XOR'easter, if you disagree with the current name, WP:RM would be the best venue to reach a new consensus.—Bagumba (talk) 02:48, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
I didn't realize there was a whole discussion on this. The route titles are presented in sources as a number and termini, sometimes also having "via". The bulleted lists you are changing show those titles as they are written; not as a route number and a general description of the route. For example "96 Medford Square - Harvard Station" (also seen here on the printed schedule) is the title of the route. If it was listed as 96: This route extends from Medford Square to Harvard station using Massachusetts Ave or something like that I would agree with you, however, these bulleted lists are the word for word titles from the sources. For my other edit, on the MBTA key bus routes article, the wording of each paragraph starting with The 1 Harvard Square–Nubian Station, which connects... makes it pretty clear that this is a title and not something that should be in sentence case. Are there sources that list these in other ways? Grk1011 (talk) 15:24, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
I agree that The route titles are presented in sources as a number and termini, sometimes also having "via", except I'd say the route numbers or just the routes, since there's no evidence that these are titles. Basically you're saying that if a map or timetable has a title or heading, then that's the line's title, and we should treat it like a composition title. But the doc you link doesn't even support that much, with "Route 96 Medford Square - Harvard Station" and "96 Effective September 2, 2018 Medford Square-Harvard Station" on its different page headings. We certainly wouldn't copy their spaced or unspaced hyphen to stand for the dash, so why should deviate from our standard capitalization in trying to ape their style? The fact that our article is written to treat these as titles is not relevant. Dicklyon (talk) 16:06, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
As shown, the headings for those pages capitalize it and use it as a title. I couldn't find any examples of where it is used in this manner and that is not the case. Therefore, when writing the name of the route in prose, it would also naturally be capitalized. If it weren't, then it would not be the name of the route and would just be a description of it and it's termini. This is not deviating from the standard capitalization because it is the name of the route. In other instances, I can see why station might not be capitalized, but it's not here. Grk1011 (talk) 03:57, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
Your conclusion does not follow. I think it's not a name, but a description of the route. Other sites have alternatives, such as "The 96 bus line (Harvard - Medford Square)". Dicklyon (talk) 04:15, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
I find it perfectly acceptable to use descriptive or abbreviated names for things in place of the formal names for ease of use in some scenarios, especially in prose and on signs. I've provided sources showing what the titles of the routes appear to be. If you disagree with that, could you provide evidence showing what you believe the route names are in the same formal sense? Grk1011 (talk) 14:52, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
I don't think the routes have names in the formal sense. They have numbers (search at mbta.com shows they mostly refer to "route 96"). You have shown what headings/titles they use on maps and timetables and their info alert page template; I see no reason to think those are formal titles of the routes, especially given their variable styling and formatting, with the number more prominent, sometimes an effective date between number and description, etc. Dicklyon (talk) 15:39, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
I just read though the relevant sections of the 2010 CMoS, and skimmed damned near all of it, and did not see this actually addressed. Where do you think you see it? Qwirkle (talk) 13:26, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
Fundamentally, the opening "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization" applies to the word "station", since it is optional, as the wikiproject agreed and codified in WP:USSTATION years ago. The argument that the bus-line descriptions are part of a "title" is a new one, and to me doesn't hold water. Dicklyon (talk) 16:06, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
Fundamentally, that is begging the question, since you are presuming it to be unnecessary. So, the CMoS, does not, despite the claim above, provide any particular guidance? Kewl. Qwirkle (talk) 16:20, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
OK, yes, since "station" is often omitted, I presume it to be unnecessary in the route descriptions. And since its often lowercase when referring to particular stations, I presume caps to be unnecessary there. And WP:Wikiproject Trains has codified this interpretation in WP:USSTATION as "In cases where 'station' is not part of the proper name, or is not usually capitalized in sources, it should be in written in lower case per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters." Granted, they didn't look at whether bus lines have "titles" that should treated like composition titles; that's a new concept, I'd say, or least one I hadn't heard of before. Note that these articles were full of indicators that they hadn't much been looked at for style, with over-capped "Bus", spaced hyphens where dashes belong, too much bolding, and more. Those are the kinds of things I work on, and unless we find a reason to interpret caps as "necessary" they shouldn't be there. Hundreds of articles have "MBTA Bus", and those are the ones I'm working through. Dicklyon (talk) 16:32, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, you're asking about CMOS, not our MOS. My books are mostly packed away in quarantine, so I can't answer, but my recollection is that they are generally in favor of not capping where not necessary. Dicklyon (talk) 16:43, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
Changes nothing, it is still about your personal interpretation. Qwirkle (talk) 16:50, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Now Qwirkle is reverting to capped MBTA Bus here with edit summary "This appears to be using a term the system uses as a proper nown to describe one operating arm. ", which is exactly the appearance that I'm trying to fix by not capping "bus", since there is no such titled operating arm, as far as I can discover, and nobody has previously alleged that there is. Similar fixed MBTA Boat; no such beast. Dicklyon (talk) 16:54, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

m (Reverted 1 edit by Qwirkle (talk): Yes, it has the appearance of a proper noun, as if the name of an org; but it's not one, which is why I fixed it (TW)) See, this illustrates a few of the problems here. First, an obviously contentious edit is mislabeled as “minor”. More importantly, assuming for a moment that this is not the official proper name, or a valid byname, it leads the reader down a garden path at which he might reasonably expect to see a GM Fishbowl at the terminus of. It’s not a “fix”, it’s a new type of breakage.Qwirkle (talk) 18:01, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
Yikes, I see that all my reverts are being marked minor! That was not my intention; perhaps there's a preference setting for that? I can't find it. I don't follow your Fishbowl comment; can't see what it has to do with the issue. Certainly in the case you reverted, "MBTA bus: 66" is better than "MBTA Bus: 66", no? Dicklyon (talk) 18:09, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
I hope you can see how that looks, in an ANI-related bunch of edits.

I don't follow your Fishbowl comment; can't see what it has to do with the issue. This does not surprise me; it’s a big part of the problem.

Certainly in the case you reverted, "MBTA bus: 66" is better than "MBTA Bus: 66", no? No, not at all. The UC suggests a system or route, which at least points in the right direction; your version suggests a single vehicle, or a vehicle class. Broken in a new way, not fixed. Qwirkle (talk) 18:18, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Even the MBTA Bus article never used the term "MBTA Bus" until it was put in as infobox title in this edit. We should not be in the business of making up proper names for "systems"; our MOS says to reserve caps for proper names. Dicklyon (talk) 18:33, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
"This edit" was 13 years ago. It's been established as a name for over a decade. You're going to have to prove that it isn't the short proper name for the MBTA's bus service. And no, my writing it like that doesn't prove that it deserves to be lower case, as I was using a descriptive phrase, not giving it a name. There's a difference between a proper name and a descriptive phrase, a difference you've shown repeatedly to have a hard time grasping. oknazevad (talk) 02:45, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
Which, unfortunately but predictably, does not address a single point above it. Qwirkle (talk) 18:45, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, maybe some other editor will be able to see your points, and either support or refute. Dicklyon (talk) 18:49, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
...and, per Chesterton, you should stop copy editing in the meantime. Qwirkle (talk) 18:56, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
I have to concur with Dicklyon on this; invention of pseudo-names by over-capitalizing is blatant WP:OR.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:24, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
Dicklyon, for the minor edits preference, see m:Help:Preferences#Editor.—Bagumba (talk) 01:15, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
It's not there; or I'm blind. Dicklyon (talk) 01:45, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
No, I don't see it either. It used to be somewhere.—Bagumba (talk) 01:50, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
Dicklyon, removed by design.[4] Though your setting should have been reset if it was enabled before. Good luck.—Bagumba (talk) 01:55, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
I never had, or thought I saw, any "Mark all edits minor by default". But I seem to be getting "Mark my reverts minor." Dicklyon (talk) 04:05, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
Ah, here it is: m:Help:Reverting#Rollback. It's the documented behavior of the "Rollback" button. Dicklyon (talk) 04:09, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
Blame myself for skimming on mobile. Your edit that Qwirkle referred to was marked by "(TW)", so it must be the rollback feature of Twinkle that marks as minor. —Bagumba (talk) 05:10, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
Use lower case since sources are inconsistent on this. Same as with every other topic. We've been over this something like 100 times in WP:RM discussions (with regard to station, stop, terminal, line, etc.), and the answer is always the same. There are cases that are proper names because they are evocative/metaphorical, rather than descriptive (Grand Central Terminal). But 99% of these things are descriptive of where the stop is or where the line goes. PS: Signage is not a source for this; signage usually capitalizes every word, and even in the cases it doesn't, it is following a bureaucratese style (which notoriously over-capitalizes), not an encyclopedic style. The fact that railfans/trainspotters love over-capitalizing everything to do with transit/transport has nothing to do with how to write an encyclopedia.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:24, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
This certainly appears to be a matter where lower case should be used. MOS:CAPS states: Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia. There is an assertion that the cases in question are "proper name phrases" but any evidence to support this comes from sources not independent of the subject and largely in examples that are not running prose. There is also the guidance of WP:USSTATION and the reasonable expectation of consistency between article titles and usage in related articles. See also comments by SMcC immediately above. Quite frankly though, some of the places I have seen relating to this dispute probably fall to WP:NOTTRAVEL and removal of such material would resolve the matter. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 08:57, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, Cinder. I've done over 1000 edits in the last week, mostly downcasing; I've gotten some thanks, and not a peep on my talk page, and not much relevant response here since my pings to see if there were any relevant sources, so I guess I'm on the right track. Dicklyon (talk) 02:43, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
There is an assertion that the cases in question are "proper name phrases" but any evidence to support this comes from sources not independent of the subject and largely in examples that are not running prose. Boston magazine [5] and the Boston Globe [6] capitalize "Station" in running prose; neither is an MBTA publication. Ditto for "Harvard Station" [7][8][9][10][11]. And "Kendall/MIT Station" [12][13]. They're proper noun phrases, just like "Massachusetts Avenue". None of these sources are by "rail fans". XOR'easter (talk) 22:35, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
The question of whether to cap "station" more generally is long settled; see WP:USSTATION. There is no disagreement that many sources do cap it, but that's not near the threshold specified in MOS:CAPS or WP:NCCAPS (e.g. see Harvard station book stats). The question here was much narrower, about whether the bus route descriptions that include stations are to be capped for some reason; i.e. whether they might be proper names, or trademarks, or composition titles, or some such. No evidence of such status has been presented, as far as I know. Dicklyon (talk) 23:56, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
How does a proper noun that's included in a route description stop being a proper noun? XOR'easter (talk) 00:01, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
I don't know if you're being silly, or dense, but if we had decided that these were proper nouns then yes they still would be in this context. But that's not what we decided; did you review WP:USSTATION and the discussion that led to it? Dicklyon (talk) 00:03, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
I'm not being silly, and I hope that I'm not being dense. WP:USSTATION says, In cases where "station" is not part of the proper name, or is not usually capitalized in sources, it should be in written in lower case. Here, it's often capitalized in sources, and it sure seems to be part of the proper names. So, at the very least, there's a good-faith argument to be made for upper case. Is it a matter of major concern either way? No, probably not. It just seems to me that there's comparable warrant for capitalizing "Station" in a route description as there is for, say, "Avenue" or "Boulevard". XOR'easter (talk) 00:21, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
Avenue and Boulevard are about 99.5% capped in sources of the last 50 or more years. Station, about 50%, if that. It's not at all comparable. (Maybe I exaggerate, but you can go to my Harvard station stats linked above and change station to avenue or boulevard and get a pretty clear of how non-comparable these are.) Dicklyon (talk) 00:53, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
As I understand it, the primary issue here is capitalising 'station' in bus routes. This then creates inconsistent capitalisation in closely related articles, where the parent article for a station has it in lower case and its usage in connection with bus routes is upper case. Whether the parent article should or should not be in upper case is a separate question. My comment was to the primary question. XOR'easter, only one of your examples touches upon the primary question - it is a "how to" web page where the bus route is used as a running heading that renders as: "Bus - The #1 or Dudley/Harvard Station bus stops ..." it is hardly definitive to the primary question. If you think that the parent article name is incorrect (and the objective evidence meets MOS:CAPS, WP:NCCAPS and WP:USSTATION), then fix that. By "objective evidence", I mean an unbiased survey and not just that which might support a particular position. Mixing the two issues togeather here only serves to confuse this discussion. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 04:54, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Name or description?

Looking at pages at the mbta.com site (e.g. 96 alerts, I find a very consistent styling: the "description" shows up as a sub-heading at the top in a header tab banner, after the main heading "route name" which is just the number, generated via the [view-source:https://www.mbta.com/schedules/96/alerts html]:

<h1 class="schedule__route-name"> <div class="bus-route-sign">96</div> </h1>
<h2 class="schedule__description">Medford Square - Harvard Station</h2>
...

And if you look at the page in reader view (a thing I just discovered in Firefox), the description does not appear at all. Just all the info with route number. Dicklyon (talk) 16:34, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

....and? A great deal of the problem I, and apparently some others, see with your edits is that you seem to believe that if a phrase can be used as a descriptive at all, that prevents us from using it as a proper noun. Some proper names even have numbers in them. Qwirkle (talk) 18:50, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
Let's not worry about what I "seem to believe", since you've got that wrong. But I think that we're not in the business of making up proper names; that is, we should not be treating phrases as proper names/nouns, or as composition titles, when there's no significant evidence that sources do so. That's what MOS:CAPS tells us. Dicklyon (talk) 21:38, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
No. Whether “[I]’ve got that wrong” isn’t an issue. That is the impression you leave in all of the thankfully limited interactions I’ve had with you on this subject. Hence “seems”.

One problem is that you appear to decide whether there is “significant evidence” by comparing number of usages of the phrase capitalized vs. not without adequately considering how the phrase is used in the source.

(Other regulars here seem to use rough guides for whether a phrase is a proper name as inviolable laws; many proper names take the definite article, for instance.) Qwirkle (talk) 14:02, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

@Qwirkle: if you find sources using these route descriptors as proper names, please do point them out instead of telling me I'm not considering them. Dicklyon (talk) 15:45, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
As I’ve said, using numbers doesn't preclude something being a proper name. Qwirkle (talk) 18:12, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
We have no disagreement on this point, but it's a bit of a non-sequitur here. Dicklyon (talk) 04:41, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
It would be nice to hear from some other editors who aren't so heavily involved in this. There is no disagreement (that I've seen recently) on these being written in sentence case when they are used in a descriptive way. The issue for myself and others is that you insist on ignoring their use as proper names in sources. Citing MOS:CAPS doesn't support your argument in this manner. Grk1011 (talk) 21:34, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
@Grk1011: can you point out some of these sources that you say that I'm ignoring? I don't think I've seen them. Dicklyon (talk) 15:45, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
Looking at the sourcing in the Alewife Station article, that seems prefered to lc, (but secondary to just Alewife. Damned realtor newspeak back to “Davis”.) Qwirkle (talk) 18:16, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
Just like with most station names, just "Alewife" suggests that "Station" is not part of the proper name. There has been a broad consensus at Wikiproject Trains to not cap "station" in such cases. I assume that much is accepted, and that Pi's argument was only about the bus route titles/descriptions, not an attempt to reopen the capping of station more generally. And "seems preferred" is not our criterion for capping anyway; see MOS:CAPS. Dicklyon (talk) 02:59, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

With Pi and Q and G all ignoring pings here, I went ahead and finished the downcasing of "station" and "bus" in MBTA articles. Happy to hear if anyone sees places where I may have messed up. I went on and downcased bus rapid transit in a few hundred places, too. Dicklyon (talk) 00:01, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

This would be, of course, a lie, as clearly evidenced above. Qwirkle (talk) 13:43, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
I'm referring to my lastest pings of July 23; G did not reply at all, and you ignored the request "if you find sources using these route descriptors as proper names, please do point them out instead of telling me I'm not considering them" where you could have advanced your point if you had any evidence. And Pi continues to avoid discussing at all. Dicklyon (talk) 16:31, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
I believe our legal friends would respond with “asked and answered”; there is no point in going over the same ground twice. Perhaps on your next trip to ANI someone will note that you continued to make near-automatic edits of the matter under dispute. Qwirkle (talk) 22:07, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
Or asked but not answered, unless I'm blind, in which case I hope someone will post a diff with the answer; going back through your edits here since July 16, I find nothing about sources that reflect on the capping of "station" in bus route descriptions, and nothing about sources bearing on downcasing "bus" in "MBTA bus", which I note you also object to for unclear reasons. It is my contention that I resumed the downcasing edits after the objections and discussions had fizzled out to nothing, with significant statements of support that MOS:CAPS says I'm on a good track. I know you disagree, but you haven't been very clear about why. Your comments about Alewife Station were pretty far off topic, as others have pointed out, as that's a settled matter in general; and also did not point out sources other than "Looking at the sourcing in the Alewife Station article". If that's what you're referring to as "answered", it's irrelevant to what I asked, which was about "using these route descriptors as proper names". So please stop calling me a liar and ignoring the truth yourself. Dicklyon (talk) 01:17, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
One at a time:

As you have now conceded, I did, in fact, respond to you; the fact that you didn’t like the response is not material. So, “ignoring pings”, is, in at least one case, a l...an untruth, shall we say.

Next, the point about bus route names containing numbers is, in fact relevant, it is difficult to tell from usual writing to tell at all whether we are dealing with “Route Nine” (which doesn’t go to the beach), “route nine”, or “route Nine”, since numbers are so generally preferred over letters, and so many usages will be at the start of the sentence.

Finally, statements of support from the echo chamber seem less than compelling to those outside it, perhaps.

That said, I will again be knocking this off my watchlist, not as correct, but as hopeless. Qwirkle (talk) 02:43, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

You ignored the question that I pinged you with. And I don't know where you get the idea that we have any issue related to numbers. But I'm glad we agree it's over. Dicklyon (talk) 03:24, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

MOS:SPORTCAPS might need revision

  • "Specific competition titles and events (or series thereof) are capitalized"

Sounds good, but I don't think it was meant to extend to things that are not usually capped in sources, such a the NHL amateur draft. It was cited for capping that in a recent RM discussion; see Talk:1978 NHL Amateur Draft. Are there cases like this where the intent is to override the general provision of avoiding unnecessary caps, only capping things that are pretty consistently capped in sources? Or did they misread it, and it really meant "competition events", not sports-related events more generally? Dicklyon (talk) 06:59, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't think it's misread, but more that it's subject to wide interpretation. Also, MOS:CAPS defers to the capitalization of sources, and most sport sources, aside from The New York Times, are caps-happy w/ sporting events. Ideally, I would suggest we limit captialization of sports event to those whose meaning would be different in plain English were it not capitalized e.g. Super Bowl, but not NBA Draft.—Bagumba (talk) 08:29, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
In "competition titles and events", do you read the modifier "competition" as applying to both titles and events? Or only to titles? If people are thinking it does not apply to events, that could be part of the problem (see this comment). I agree with you generally, that caps are "necessary" when they change the meaning; but also when almost all sources use caps. Neither of those was the case on the arguments against downcasing amateur draft, as you can see. Dicklyon (talk) 20:27, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
@Djsasso: that's your comment I linked above. Can you comment on your interpretation of the guideline? Dicklyon (talk) 20:40, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
I take that to mean the two separately, it is fairly clearly trying to say the competition titles and sporting events because if it meant just the competitions themselves it would only have to say "competitions" instead it goes out of its way to mention competitions and events. In regards to the discussion you link to, a number of major current print sources in the subject area were listed for you where they do use capitals so I don't think its as clear as you think it is that no one uses capitals for that topic. Pretty much every subject specific book will refer to it in capitals when the date is included as opposed to using the generic NHL amateur draft. As I think a couple people mentioned it the same as "I am going to see President Washington." and "Washington is president." except in this case its "The 1978 NHL Amateur Draft was a sell out" and "Players are selected during the NHL amateur draft." -DJSasso (talk) 20:54, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
Well the wording doesn't help. But neither does pointing out that some sources cap it, if you can't argue that sources do so "consistently". As to whether the article is about the event mentioned in "The 1978 NHL Amateur Draft was a sell out" versus the actual process "Players are selected during the NHL amateur draft", I'd have to say it's mostly about the latter. Nobody much cares what hotel room it was in; the content is all about what teams got what players. But even if you say the former, there's scant evidence that sources would cap that; few to no contemporaneous news sources cap it, as I had pointed out when asked there. Papers had things like "last week's NHL amateur draft" and "The NHL amateur draft is Saturday and Sunday" and "the 1978 NHL amateur draft to be held Thursday in Montreal". Dicklyon (talk) 21:12, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I have taken some time to look at this. In the linked RM discussion, it was argued (interpreted) that "events" extended to other sports related occurences and not just competitions. It was also argued that, by virtue of the existence of MOS:SPORTSCAPS, SPORTSCAPS was an exception to the general guidance of MOS:CAPS (only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia). However, looking more closely, all of the given examples that are capitalised are competitions (WPA World Nine-ball Championship, Tour de France, Americas Cup). The intent therefore appears to be that events are competitions. The following paragraph then commences: The above rules of thumb should also be applied to ... As a rule-of-thumb, the guidance is not an exception to the general guidance of MOS:CAPS. I don't see that there is an intrinsic problem with SPORTSCAPS, though it might benefit by making an explicit statement (or footnote) that SPORTSCAPS ultimately follows (defers to) the general advice of MOS:CAPS. WP:MILMOS essentially does this. Also:

  • As an observation, most sporting bodies will be registered as companies and events of any note are going to be registered names (trademarks), so to some extent, the advice on capitalising same is covered elsewhere in MOS:CAPS.
  • I did look at a number of sports article. I noticed a tendency to cap words like game, round, season and final when preceded by the name of the governing body and sometimes even when used alone. This would seem to me to be unnecessary overcapping.
  • There is a common tendency to capitalise a noun phrase in full when the adjectival part of the noun phase is a proper name being used attributively. "NHL Amateur Draft" is arguably an example. The converse case is also sometimes incorrectly fully capped. Perhaps it might be appropriate to give some general advice to avoid such overcapping - ie not just in a sports context.

Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 09:56, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

@Cinderella157: There is a common tendency to capitalise a noun phrase in full when the adjectival part of the noun phase is a proper name being used attributively ... Perhaps it might be appropriate to give some general advice to avoid such overcapping ... The problem in sports (at least North American) is that "overcapping" is arguably consistently done in reliable sources. The results of an RM will often vary depending on the participants. Hence, we have NBA draft, Major League Baseball draft, National Football League Draft and NHL Entry Draft.—Bagumba (talk) 12:31, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
May not settle with many here, but perhaps a compromise is required. Leave those that are capitalised, as they are & leave those that aren't capitalised, as they are. I'm a proponent of consistency among related articles, so my proposal is big departure for me. GoodDay (talk) 13:46, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
I generally prefer consistency with guidelines. And if guidelines are inconsistent, that's worth fixing. Dicklyon (talk) 03:42, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
@Bagumba: I strongly disagree with "overcapping" is arguably consistently done in reliable sources. I showed in the RM discussion that "NHL amateur draft" is not capped in books or in news. The evidence from sources is very strong, so the "no consensus" result just shows that hockey fans either don't want to respect guidelines, or interpret the guideline strangely, imo. The same thing applies to the NFL draft and others, but if we can't get one this obvious fixed, it's not clear that trying to apply guidelines is useful effort. Dicklyon (talk) 03:48, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
@Dicklyon: The keyword is arguably. It depends on the samples that participants choose to use. You are relying on books. Others are using online news or even blogs. This will continue as long as we rely on subjective interpretation on whether they're consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources Other areas of MOS define our own in-house standards, but not in this case. The alternative would be that we provide in-house guidance on what is deemed a proper noun, either generally or specifically in sports, instead of deferring to their appearance in sources—Bagumba (talk) 04:03, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
I don't recall anyone making that argument, and I'd be surprised if you could find any set of reliable sources where NHL amateur draft is capped. Are you just speaking hypothetically? Dicklyon (talk) 04:41, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
I didn't intend for it to be hypothetical, but looking over the NHL discussion again, and also Talk:2016_NFL_Draft#Requested_move_30_April_2016, it looks like the main disagreement was over what is and isn't a proper noun, not primarily about sources.—Bagumba (talk) 07:25, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
There is no disagreement that WP caps proper nouns and proper names; but one can't just decide out of the blue to treat something as one, if sources don't. Yet that's what they did on those drafts. Dicklyon (talk) 16:10, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
It's not exactly out of the blue. The NHL capitalizes it, as do various other encyclopedias such as Total Hockey and Britannica Book of the Year. Many other hockey specific sources capitalize it. We didn't just make it up. -DJSasso (talk) 17:27, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
OK, not "out of the blue", but out of purely specialized sources, against the great majority of sources that don't capitalize it. That's not WP style, not WP process. We're supposed to evaluate arguments in light of guidelines; if the way the guideline was written here was part of why the close was done wrong, we should admit that and fix it. Dicklyon (talk) 15:43, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
You keep saying majority, but people are disagreeing that is the case, you are basing your opinion on a very small google result list. Books on a topic are no less weighted when it comes to being a source than a newspaper article is. -DJSasso (talk) 15:51, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, who disagreed with my observation that the great majority of sources do not cap amateur draft? Both books and newspapers heavily favor lowercase. I don't think anyone suggested otherwise. Dicklyon (talk) 19:10, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
@Djsasso: If someone did disagree about which usage is in the majority, as you say, then please do point that out. I don't think I've seen that in the case we're talking about, or other "draft" situations. Dicklyon (talk) 05:53, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
The very first oppose in the the discussion does, not to mention I did. Others touched on it as well or in the related discussion at the WT:HOCKEY page where this first came up. Not to mention those that said they were opposing per the comments that mentioned it. -DJSasso (talk) 13:35, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
@Djsasso: sorry if I'm being dense, but I still can't find it. The first oppose in the discussion merely claimed that some encyclopedias and hockey-specific sources cap it (and seems to be wrong about Britannica at least). And I can't find any place where you've said that you think a majority of sources cap it, either there or here (and why would you say something so counter factual?). Dicklyon (talk) 22:06, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

@BD2412: maybe you can comment on why you closed with "There is a clear absence of consensus for the moves proposed" when the opposers had no arguments firmly based in guidelines or sources, and their flimsy arguments had been refuted. How many people arguing to follow guidelines does it take to overcome the "I like my caps" of fans? Or did you find Djsasso's argument that the MOS:CAPS page says to capitalize events was relevant in spite of the general guideline? Dicklyon (talk) 06:02, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

I closed that discussion as having a "clear absence of consensus for the moves proposed" because there was a clear absence of consensus for the moves proposed. The articles have been at their existing titles without fuss for well over a decade, so the relative strength of any move proponent's conviction that they are right and others are wrong does not by itself overcome the long-standing status of the titles. BD2412 T 16:58, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
I don't thing anyone would argue that strength of conviction is relevant. But then neither is length of time, imho. It's supposed to be about strength of arguments. The closing instructions say "Consensus is determined not just by considering the preferences of the participants in a given discussion, but also by evaluating their arguments, assigning due weight accordingly, and giving due consideration to the relevant consensus of the Wikipedia community in general as reflected in applicable policy, guidelines and naming conventions." There were zero good arguments to cap these. Dicklyon (talk) 22:10, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
Which arguments didn't you think were good arguments? BD2412 T 04:51, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
OK, I'll re-summarize the opposition:
  • 18abruce said some specialist hockey sources cap it; and that the Britannica Book of the Year caps it (which is not true, as far as I can tell, but surely they don't cap entry draft).
  • Djsasso argues, without support in sources, that they are proper names, and that MOS:SPORTCAPS means we should cap names of events even if sources don't.
  • Kaiser matias says "per 18abruce and DJSasso", and then suggests checking old newspapers, not just books. He didn't respond after I showed that newspapers never capped it.
  • GoodDay just says "as we have Year Entry Draft articles." This is not relevant here, and can be fixed after we get beyond this one.
  • Sabbatino simply says "Oppose since this is the correct name for the event. Anyone who will try to change my mind – do not bother."
If there's anything like a good argument in there, I'm not seeing it. Dicklyon (talk) 23:30, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

In light of this conversation, it seems that a Move Review is in order, so I've started one at Wikipedia:Move_review/Log/2020_July#1978_NHL_Amateur_Draft. Dicklyon (talk) 23:33, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

You are determined, for sure. GoodDay (talk) 04:47, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

At the Move Review, an endorser mentions the fact that under SPORTSCAPS, names of sporting events such as draft meetings that are held equably each year are proper names and should begin with uppercase letters. If that prevails, it puts us back here at needing to fix SPORTSCAPS. Dicklyon (talk) 17:18, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Only if you think its broken. -DJSasso (talk) 18:12, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

As I have said above, I don't see anything inherently wrong with the advice; however, the specific misinterpretation has resulted from reading a line in isolation from the fuller advice. An "event or title" has been construed as an exception from the general advice of the guideline where it is not - it is a rule of thumb. I might offer the following suggestion: Specific competition titles and events (or series thereof) are generally capitalized: WPA World Nine-ball Championship ... The inclusion of "generally" should serve to make it clearer that there are exceptions. Such exceptions would then defer to (and be determined by) the general advice of MOS:CAPS. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 00:44, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

"Generally" is already implied by 1) the absence of "always" 2) WP:IAR. Without general guidance instead of a few random examples, this debate will continue.—Bagumba (talk) 07:03, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
Better might be to add "if they are usually capitalized in sources", like we have in MOS:MILTERMS. Any objections? Do we need an RFC? Dicklyon (talk) 00:52, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
I suggest adding independent: "if they are usually capitalized in independent sources."—Bagumba (talk) 09:48, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
The issue has arisen because "always" has been assumed when it should not be - ie: Specific competition titles and events (or series thereof) are always capitalized: WPA World Nine-ball Championship ... Adding "generally" would resolve this misconstrusion but I would also support "if they are usually capitalized in independent sources" as the solution (in principle), though adding it to the existing will likely become cumbersome and appear circular almost to the extent of tautology: they are usually capitalised if they are usually capitalised. An alternative may be to add "generally" along with the fuller qualification in a footnote. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 00:21, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
I would propose similar wording as MOS:MILTERMS, simply: "Specific competition titles and events (or series thereof) are capitalized if they are usually capitalized in independent sources: WPA World Nine-ball Championship ..."—Bagumba (talk) 06:30, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
I support the suggestion made by Dicklyon and Bagumba -- if they are usually capitalized in independent sources -- though we should also clarify that they should be reliable as well. A fan blog, for example, would be an independent source but not an independent reliable one. Calidum 14:20, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
I think "reliable" is always implied in WP, but it seems to be repeated often on the page w.r.t. sources too.—Bagumba (talk) 15:04, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
Dicklyon is correct in "Sounds good, but I don't think it was meant to extend to things that are not usually capped in sources", when referring to "Specific competition titles and events (or series thereof) are capitalized". I would know, since I wrote that part of MoS.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:06, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

I made the suggested clarifying change to MOS:SPORTSCAPS on July 15. The Move Review remains open. Nobody likes to close those things. Dicklyon (talk) 00:51, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Capitalisation of "census"

At Census in Australia should every occurrence of "census" be capitalised? I made this edit to uncapitalise the word where it does not specifically refer to the "Census of Poulation and Housing". This included things like "Census Test" and "Census night". I did the same thing to "white" in "White people". These changes were reverted,[14] with the editor who did so posting this to my talk page. My question therefore is "what is correct?". Should "White people" also be capitalised etc. --AussieLegend (✉) 09:38, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

I can't think of why census should be capitalised. Recently some journals have started capitalising black/white/etc but the recent consensus on Wikipedia is not to do that. Popcornfud (talk) 12:19, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
@Popcornfud: Hey! I'm not sure if you've seen my comments on AussieLegend's talk page, but my claim that "Census" should be capitalised comes from the fact that it's a common reference for the national Census of Population and Housing, not just a random census. This is reflected in the article where it's always referred to as the Census, not a census, which is also reflected in all the sources I list in my reply to AussieLegend further down in this discussion. And with the capitalisation of "white", I agree that it shouldn't be capitalised - my capitalisation was just me having a moment which I explained (APA Style Guide only recently started using lowercase, so I'm still getting used to it). ItsPugle (please use {{ping|ItsPugle}} on reply) 08:59, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
ItsPugle, I would say that the Census of Population and Housing is a kind of census and therefore referring to it as "the census" would be fine, just as it is fine to refer to New York City as "the city" (and not "the City"). Popcornfud (talk) 09:14, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
@Popcornfud: Hmm. I get what you're saying but I still think that Census should be capitalised. ItsPugle (please use {{ping|ItsPugle}} on reply) 10:43, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
It is not the official name. It appears to be somewhat concocted and is not consistent with the name used for a specific census year result. References to the Australian census in a google search are not even consistently capitalised by government departments and as for "White people", I think we have already had that discussion too. Lower case per MOS:CAPS. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 02:11, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the input, which reflects my opinion. The editor who insists that the word be capitalised claims that the ABS website consistently capitalises it, as does a paper from Sweden, and that "Census" is an official and conventionally accepted reference for the CPH. (all of this is on my talkpage) --AussieLegend (✉) 06:15, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
@Cinderella157: Hey! Would you be able to possible link to the search that shows inconsistent government results? All the results that I've found are consistent in their capitalisation - whenever they refer to the actual Census of Population and Housing, they use capital C, which is what I am advocating, and when they talk about other "census" events (like university census dates), they use lowercase. In terms of it being official/officially recognised, the use of "Census" in the article is used when referring to the Census of Population and Housing (The 2016 Census showed that most Australians have some non-Australian ancestry etc). You can see this reflected in all the sources I list in my reply to AussieLegend further down in this discussion. And with "white", I had already explained to AussieLegend that I was wrong with capitalising it, and I'm just used to the old APA Style which did capitalise it :) ItsPugle (please use {{ping|ItsPugle}} on reply) 08:59, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
@AussieLegend: Hi again. If you actually had a look at the ABS websites, they do actually capitalise it in all mentions. And instead of trying to reduce my entire argument to the ABS website and a single paper from Sweden, it might be worth you sharing all the other sources I provided, all of which have "Census" capitalised when referring to the Census of Population and Housing:
And if two of the most authoritative academics in Australian statistics isn't enough, let's have a look at the plethora of other reliable, scholarly and independent sources:
These sources are all the publicly available documents from the first six pages of results on Google Scholar for "Census of Population and Housing Australia" that aren't ABS (since I've already shown that they use capital C). And they all show that "Census" is capitalised when referring to the Census of Population and Housing. You also haven't actually shown any evidence, papers, resources,... that it isn't capitalised. ItsPugle (please use {{ping|ItsPugle}} on reply) 08:59, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
If you actually had a look at the ABS websites - As I've stated several times now, Wikipedia doesn't necessarily follow what other websites do, we have our own style guide. There's a bit of WP:IDHT in the fact that you refuse to accept this.
You also haven't actually shown any evidence, papers, resources,... that it isn't capitalised. - And also again, MOS:CAPS and the discussion here on that very page's talk page. --AussieLegend (✉) 09:29, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

ItsPugle, we have our own style guide. On capitalisation, it says to "avoid unnecessay capitalisation". It further states: only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia [underline added for emphasis]. The ABS is not independent. Also, other government usage is not considered 'reliable' in the matter of determining capitalisation per WP:SSF. Searching google, I did find examples from the Victorian Government that did not capitalise "census". There is a distinction between capitalising Census of Population and Housing and capitalising "census" alone, when it refers to the Australian census. This is the fundamental question here and to which I responded to above. "The Census" is not a proper noun. It refers to the Census of Population and Housing by virtue of context and the definite article the. It is not necessary capitalisation per MOS:CAPS. MOS:SIGNIFCAPS specifically deprecates capitalisation for significance. This is pretty much a "settled matter" in terms of the broad community consensus. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 10:07, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

@Cinderella157: Absolutely we do have our own style conventions, but this policy literally starts off with Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia, and the sources that I've provided (even if you subtract all government source, even though I don't really see how it really matters) are independent, scholarly, and most definitely reliable. If you take out the ABS, you see once again, consistency across all open access journal articles which are reliable. And WP:SSF is hardly relevant considering this isn't an overly technical article. And that Google Search, "census australia" for me only lists pages with capital C's - Google Searches show tailored answers, which are hardly representative of an encyclopaedic manner. A search for Victoria State Government websites though (site:*.vic.gov.au) actually shows only two places that uses lowecase "c":
  1. the State Library of Victoria, when they're referring to censuses that occurred before federation (i.e. before it was the Census of Population and Housing, and they was muster censuses)
  2. and this research matters planning document, which oddly enough doesn't capitalise the c in "Census of Population and Housing", suggesting it definitely isn't reliable
Also, this isn't a thing of MOS:EMPHCAPS/MOS:SIGNIFCAPS in the slightest. I'm not advocating for capital C based on emphasis of the word, I'm advocating on following the consistently used capitalisation in independent, reliable sources. Also, as far as I can see, there is no existing Wikipedia consensus on the capitalisation of "census", which in turn defers back to the policy, which supports using such capitalisation. You can't seriously deny that the C in Census is consistently capitalised in reliable sources, so I don't really understand your point since it explicitly defects from policy. ItsPugle (please use {{ping|ItsPugle}} on reply) 10:43, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
See from Google Books: [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20]. Not even the Commonwealth yearbook capitalises to the extent indicated in the OP. Here are two examples from the Victorian Government: [21] [22]. And these: [23] [24] [25] [26] [27]. Quite apart from statistics being a technical field, government sources are not considered reliable on matters of capitalisation because of a known propensity to over-capitalise. The same applies to any organisation in writing about itself or what it does. Capitalisation of "census" (ie not the full title) when referring to the Census of Population and Housing is capitalisation for significance. The burden required to show capitalisation is necessary is not met by simply showing that it is frequently capitalised - it must be shown to be "consistently" capitalised (and in reliable independent sources). While this particular matter has likely not been discussed, it has been settled for plenty of similar cases. Furthermore, it is simply not a proper noun. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 00:35, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
Okay, I'm going to address these one by one just for simplicity:
  1. The first three sources you listed were all various prints of the same book, Year Book Australia, from 1981, 83, and 84. In fact, this book series was written by the ABS, which by your own claim is therefore not appropriate as evidence.
    1. The 1981 print uses a mixture of capitalised and uncapitalisaed Cs depending on if its referring to general censuses or a specific Census, as I've suggested: A census conducted in New South Wales in 1828 [pre-federation, so lowecase as it was a muster census]... The data from the 1976 Census is based on a sample of the schedules...
    2. The 1983 print also uses these: The 1981 Census contained fewer questions than the 1976 Census... sample surveys have been taken soon after each census...
    3. Same with 1984: Every census from 1881 has inquired into... Underenumeration of the population of Australia at the 1981 Census is estimated...
  2. Australian Soul: Religion and Spirituality in the 21st Century has only been bought by 117 libraries and has only been cited 57 times, suggesting it could be an outlier - nonetheless, it does use lowercase c
  3. Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Toward an agenda only contains "census" in citations and in referring to general censuses (Commonwealth census-based count of the Australian population) etc
  4. Conference on Census Undercount: proceedings of the 1980 conference is a paper from 1980 by the US Bureau of the Census so... anyways, it does use a lowecase C, apart from the fact that it actually quotes the Census and Statistics Act 1905, which refers to the Census of Population and Housing as The Census shall be taken...
  5. That two Victoria State Government sources do use lowercase c, but again, you did previously say that government sources should not be used so...
  6. The Monash University project page does use a lowercase c, however the most recent report from that project uses an uppercase C: The Jewish Population of Australia: Key findings from the 2011 Census etc
  7. The National Archives of Australia source does use lowercase c, but again, I defer to your government source argument
  8. That Guardian Australia source does use a lowercase c
  9. The BBC article that you provided uses a mixture of capital and lowercase C's: it starts with The results of Australia's 2016 census have been released and ens with The Australian Bureau of Statistics has sketched a picture of the typical Australian, based on the 2016 Census results etc - rather inconsistent, so I would generally not rely on that specific BBC article myself
    1. I ended up in a rabbit hoel looking at BBC-related reporting and actually found that this article in The Australian Census is capitalised: The 2021 Census is expected to include a question on gender identity.
  10. The ABC Education video you provided is also inconsistent: it's title uses a capital C (Take stock of the Australian Census), then lowercase c's in the description.
    1. A little bit of searching shows that the ABC normally appears to use capital C too: in this case data from the 2011 Census placed into the ConCensus interactive and According to the 2016 Australian Census, approximately...
In summary, of the 13 sources you've provided: six are government sources, which you've excluded as evidence (three of which use capitals); three use capital Cs (+ the three government sources); two are inconsistent in their use; and, two use lowercase c's. In the process of going through the sources though, I've also found that The Australian and ABC use capital Cs, as does the actual act that provides for the Census (Census and Statistics Act 1905, i.e. "the Census" is the WP:OFFICIALNAME too). So... I'm not hugely persuaded. ItsPugle (please use {{ping|ItsPugle}} on reply) 13:51, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
The point was, that not even government sources (with a propensity to over-cap) do so consistently. Cinderella157 (talk) 22:40, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
You've selectively represented a tiny set of sources that are inconsistent in their capitalisation - surely you wouldn't actually include them as a representation of a reliable source then, since they're inconsistent? If you take a step back though and have a look at the wider sources, you'll see that "Census" is truly consistently capitalised in the relevant and reliable, signfiicant majority of sources: ABS, Parliament of Australia, Queensland Government, NSW Government, Victoria State Government (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), Tasmanian Government (lowercase c for muster censuses, uppercase C for the Census of Population and Housing, which is what I suggest), Northern Territory Government. Not to mention the plethora of local governments that use capital C: City of Sydney, Brisbane City Council (the largest in Australia), City of Darwin, City of Adelaide, City of Darebin, City of Ipswich, City of Port Phillip, City of Whitehorse etc. And if you wanted to expand beyond Australia: literally the entire of the US Bureau of the Census website, City of Melbourne, Florida, USA.Gov (whole of US Government), US National Archives... ItsPugle (please use {{ping|ItsPugle}} on reply) 02:12, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
The word "census" is a common noun, not consistently capitalized. See [28] [29] [30] [31]. Say Census of Population and Housing, but shorten it to the census. —Eyer (If you reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}} to your message to let me know.) 02:25, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
The first result for me for The Herald Sun uses a capital C: Census data 2016: Melbourne overtakes Sydney as most popular city - The Census 2016 figures released on Tuesday morning reveal Melbourne will overtake Sydney by 2050... The Census, taken less than 10 months ago by the Bureau of Statistics... Australian Statistician David W. Kalisch said the majority of Australians completed the Census last year. The Economist does, however, appear to use lowercase c, as does NYT. The first Washington Post result for me does tend to use a mix though, as I've suggested, of capital C when talking about the actual Census regime, and lowercase c when talking about censuses in general - Officials estimate that overall costs for the 2020 Census will approach a record $16 billion... For the first time since 1880, census workers probably won't visit your neighborhood... ItsPugle (please use {{ping|ItsPugle}} on reply) 04:02, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Comment/Alternative: Another alternative, if we're particularly struggling to reach consensus, would be to explicitly state that "Census" refers to the Census of Population and Housing: The census in Australia, officially the Census of Population and Housing (the Census), is the.... This is used on some ABS pages and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare source I found. ItsPugle (please use {{ping|ItsPugle}} on reply) 04:02, 5 August 2020 (UTC) that's unnecessary

In an article titled Census in Australia it's pretty clear what "census" refers to. I don't think we're struggling to reach consensus at all. The consensus seems clearly to not support capitalisation of "census". --AussieLegend (✉) 13:21, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
Agreed. —Eyer (If you reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}} to your message to let me know.) 14:04, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
Agreed. Lowercase. Also, note that book ngram stats suggest the caps are optional. WP style is therefore to use lowercase. ItsPugle says "You can't seriously deny that the C in Census is consistently capitalised in reliable sources", but yes, we do seriously deny that. Dicklyon (talk) 19:59, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
They hadn't been brought up before, so I'm glad you brought these up. I forgot to include this, but the Ngrams search for "australian census" shows a capitalised C is more common. Anyways, if you wanted to again expand beyond just Australia, "united states census" is more often capitalised than not, as is "2020 census", which is the US' this year. ItsPugle (please use {{ping|ItsPugle}} on reply) 04:20, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
"more common" is not the criterion. Re-read MOS:CAPS. As I noted, the stats clearly show that caps are optional, not consistently used in sources. Dicklyon (talk) 05:42, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
ItsPugle, I don't see that "we're particularly struggling to reach consensus". Rather, I see you against everyone else. WP style is to use lowercase when caps are optional, or sources are not consistent. Dicklyon (talk) 05:47, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Census should only be capitalized in a proper name or a conventionalized variant of one that is treated as a proper name. This basically resolves to just the government body (United States Census Bureau, or US Census Bureau for short, or the Census Bureau in a clear enough context), and a publication (1910 United States Census or United States Census of 1910; it's rendered different ways).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:43, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

MOS:DOCTCAPS cleanup

I've done a series of copyedits to address some recurrent confusions and tedious interpretational disputes and wikilawyering about MOS:DOCTCAPS. The three edits in series are 1, 2, and 3; or view it as a combined diff.

I don't think any of it will be controversial. It includes: formatting consistency and grammar cleanup; tighter wording to avoid ambiguities; filling in some requested examples; heading off some wikilawyering by including clarifying words; fixing some logical errors (e.g. "God in a biblical context" includes more contexts that just Christian and Jewish, strictly speaking); discouraged capitalization of Platonic ideas like "Truth" and "Justice" except for specific reasons, because it's usually a PoV problem; made some examples more contextually sensible by tying them back into religion; and rewrote the confusing sentence about "republican" vs. "Republican", given recent talk page complaints about it being hard to parse.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:36, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Capitalization of heaven and hell

Should they be lowercase like the atmosphere and the universe, or uppercase like the Internet and the North Pole and Asgard? Both Heaven and Hell are currently inconsistent, and this affects many other articles. There has been scattered comments in the archives of Talk:Heaven and Talk:Hell, with some considering uppercase to be Christian-biased, but no clear discussion and consensus. This also affects article titles, like Christian views on Hell and Entering Heaven alive. I'm assuming lowercase always for the plural forms? -- Beland (talk) 19:31, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Per MOS:CAPS, since they're not consistently capped in sources, they shouldn't be in Wikipedia. If there are limited contexts in which they consistently capitalized as proper names, we should get some evidence about that. I don't think there is, after a brief look around sources, lots of which use lowercase even in the Christian context (e.g. this book or this one). Dicklyon (talk) 19:43, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Those two articles were capped without discussion by Randy Kryn, famous over-capitalizer. I just fixed Entering heaven alive and Christian views on hell. Dicklyon (talk) 19:57, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
When used as a proper noun (you can tell they're used as proper nouns because they don't need articles), as in "entering Heaven alive", they should be capitalized. When used as improper nouns, with articles, as for example in Anunnaki "descendants of An and Ki, the god of the heavens and the goddess of earth", they should be lowercase. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:01, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Thanks David, right you are. And as far as I know I haven't Overcapitalized overcapitalized very much, so my famous (infamous?) overcapitalizations have been pretty much correct. Randy Kryn (talk) 20:48, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Just reverted back to the 'Christian views of Hell' title, lower-casing was a controversial move since it has been fine upper-cased since February 2018. Maybe an RM would figure out what the hell is being talked about. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:32, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Sure thing, though per WP:BRD we should have discussed after I reverted you, not after you reverted back. Dicklyon (talk) 22:19, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Since the name has been upper cased since Feb. 2018 the revert of your bold move seems appropriate, then the discussion. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:29, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
New RM discussion here: Talk:Christian_views_on_Hell#Requested_move_14_August_2020. So go to it. Dicklyon (talk) 22:27, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
  • I have to agree with David. Even if one does not believe in the existence of Heaven or Hell, one should at least treat them as mythological/fictional place names... and we capitalize fictional and mythological place names. Blueboar (talk) 20:14, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
    I would agree with this as well, when used as proper nouns/specific places then they should be capitalized. When they are not like the example David Eppstein uses you would not. -DJSasso (talk) 20:16, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
    Not seeing it. Can you find a context in which sources tend to cap these? Dicklyon (talk) 20:31, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
    You know, "god" is also a normal English word that can be used as an improper noun (without articles) to refer to the god or gods of some other theology, but is often used as a proper noun and capitalized as God within certain theologies that admit only one God. Are you going to start arguing that we should uniformly downcase God as well? Because I don't see the distinction you're making here or the justification for why certain proper nouns that are also words should be downcased, even when used as proper nouns, but others shouldn't. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:08, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
    Excellent point about God vs god. I think it's pretty clear that there are broad contexts where we cap God, and sources agree. See the difference? Dicklyon (talk) 22:19, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
  • I afree with Dicklyon: go with the sources. Tony (talk) 00:05, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Sources are apt to be our guide on this, yes. My prediction is that RS on the Christian Hell, i.e. the Hell and the Heaven, the places and/or spiritual states, in Christian and related theology are going to be capitalized, but that it will be lower-case in figural usage ("What the hell is that?", "My life is a living hell"), and in comparative usage, e.g. in referring to pagan afterlifes/otherworlds as hells or heavens. MOS:DOCTCAPS already encapsulates this specific-doctrine vs. generic-reference distinction ("the Virgin Birth of Jesus", "several religions posit virgin births"). That said, explicitly Christian writing is not a reliable source on this (not independent of the topic, and obviously specialized-style fallacies run rampant in religious materials). But there is no shortage at all of academic book and journal material about Christianity that is not written from the perspective of Christian indoctrination. Just be sure to distinguish their comparative writing from their specific-to-Christianity writing.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:22, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
    SMcCandlish, preposterous suggestion and bigoted at that. Let's try a substitution: CNN is not a reliable source for the Trump Presidency because they are not independent of politics. Scientific American is not a reliable source for climate change because they are not independent of science. How does that work for you? Elizium23 (talk) 15:34, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
    False equivalence, on multiple levels. This is not about reliability for factual claims, but for capitalization style. I referred to WP:SSF for a reason. Besides, CNN is not actually a reliable source for how to style something, because journalistic writing (news style) differs markedly from other types and follows its own style guides (especially AP Stylebook), and WP is not written in news style as a matter of clear policy. SciAm isn't presenting a capitalization style at odds with broader English usage, so is simply irrelevant to this scenario. But we have in fact had academic-journal style cases here before, with a particular type of journal (ornithological) over-capitalizing things like "bald eagle" (as "Bald Eagle"). The argument to mimic that capitalization style in that subject on Wikipedia did not meet with consensus (WP:BIRDCON RfC). What you're missing here is that the WP:INDY failure isn't lack of independence from the overall topic, but lack of independence from the capitalization style. For practicing Christians, capitalizing things like this is a subjective, PoV WP:GREATWRONGS matter, just as capitalization of vernacular names of bird species has been for some ornithologists. There are many, many biblical studies journals (and books by academics in that field) that are essentially neutral historical, textual-analysis, archaeological, and other work that isn't dependent on dogma/proselytization. These are the sources to use, as reliable but independent sources on the Christian Hell and Heaven, along with general dictionaries in the aggregate (as reliable sources on English usage more broadly, including capitalization and meaning distinctions; the list at WP:ENGLANG#Online tools links to most if not all of the reputable ones that are freely available online).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:54, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Capitalization of solar system

Hello Peter Gulutzan
I saw you reverted my edit. I would like to give a better explanation on why I made that edit in particular. The article title of Solar System is capitalized. It is also capitalized in the sentences in the article. I don't quite see when the title could be made lowercase. You can also welcome to provide a counter-argument on why your revert was appropriate. Interstellarity (talk) 18:05, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Here's a link to your edit. You said "solar system is always capitalized", but that's not true. The conditions for capping it are stated there. There are other solar systems than the one around Sol. Dicklyon (talk) 18:28, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Now I know that when you said "the matching article" you meant the Solar System article. You removed "solar system" from the list re "a specific celestial body in an astronomical context". I regard that as unhelpful to the reader who looks at the rest of the list and wonders: what about solar system | Solar System? It happens, as a search of this talk page's archives might show. By the way, although it may be improper, I had no trouble finding an article in Science titled "How many of our comets come from alien solar systems?". This does not mean that I approve of the current rule, but that's not the issue here. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 19:10, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
I'm also not a fan. Neither is NASA, whose style guide says Do not capitalize “solar system” and “universe.” Dicklyon (talk) 19:22, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
"Always capitalised"? See: [32]. Now, as Peter observes, some of these instances could be to solar systems other than our own, though a reasonable premise is that the greatest proportion of sources are referring to our's - but to test this, see: [33]. It is purely descriptive in that it is a system of bodies orbiting a sun/star. Asserting that it should be capitalised when referring to the system around our particular sun is capitalisation for significance or distinction and falls to MOS:SIGNIFCAPS. This particular guidance contradicts the basic premise of MOS:CAPS Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 22:37, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
It's not "capitalization for significance". It's capitalization because it refers to a particular astronomical object, and is therefore a proper noun. This is the same reason we cap Sun, Moon, and Earth, when referring to the astronomical bodies. --Trovatore (talk) 00:01, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
"Appellatives" are naming nouns (common nouns). When referring to a particular referent in a class, we do so by the definite article "the". We do not say "the Dog" for a particular dog. "Being a particular referent" is not the cterion for being a proper noun|name. There are many referents called "William Smith". Capitalising "solar system" for our solar system is capitalisation "for significance or distinction and falls to MOS:SIGNIFCAPS". We generally rely on "consistent capitalisation in sources" to determine what WP capitalises. "Solar System" does not meet the criteria. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 05:16, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
As my father once explained to me, there might be other grand canyons, but there's only one Grand Canyon. There may be lots of solar systems, but only one is the Solar System. --Trovatore (talk) 05:29, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
He was a wise man, your dad. And we do perhaps have just one "Grand Canyon". But I find no such analogy in sources for our solar system, though it is a special one for us, and though we named the concept for Sol. Dicklyon (talk) 06:21, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
So true. Same with Universe. The only context where caps win is "Miss Universe". Dicklyon (talk) 23:42, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Context... capitalize when it is a name, not otherwise: The Solar System is the solar system that Earth’s earth is in. Blueboar (talk) 00:16, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
NASA's style guide, linked by Dicklyon above, and Cinderella157's ngram results clearly support that most common usage is not as a proper noun. Capitalize the names of planets (e.g., “Earth,” “Mars,” “Jupiter”). Capitalize “Moon” when referring to Earth’s Moon; otherwise, lowercase “moon” (e.g., “The Moon orbits Earth,” “Jupiter’s moons”). Capitalize “Sun” when referring to our Sun but not to other suns. Do not capitalize “solar system” and “universe.” (bold added by me) Schazjmd (talk) 00:26, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Question re NASA’s guidance: What NAME does NASA use when talking about our solar system? (Specifically, I am wondering if they use “Sol System”. if so, I think that would explain their capitalization guidance) Blueboar (talk) 00:45, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Blueboar, good question. I searched nasa.gov for "sol system", no hits. "Solar system" gets a bunch, in title case when used as part of a name (Goldstone Solar System Radar Hale Telescope, Poster of the Solar System) but lower-case everywhere else. They seem to use "the solar system" most often, but sometimes use "our solar system". Schazjmd (talk) 00:53, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Yeah... did a search to try to answer my own question, and found the same. I do note that their web pages are inconsistent on capitalization... I suspect their web designers don’t always read the agency’s style guide. (Sound familiar?) Blueboar (talk) 01:06, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
When I do a Google search for solar system, I came across this NASA link where they capitalize the two words in Solar System. this link capitalizes the title in title case, but when it talks about it in the first sentence, it's all lowercase. The Wikipedia page: Solar System is capitalized in title case and the paragraphs have it the same way. I think capitalization of the Wikipedia article is OK and does not need to be changed. These are my thoughts. Interstellarity (talk) 01:15, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Your first link also has lowercase in the only place it appears in a sentence, in "there are potentially thousands of planetary systems like our solar system within the galaxy." Dicklyon (talk) 06:17, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
That's fine; our solar system happens to be the Solar System, just as our sun happens to be the Sun, and the Earth has one moon, namely the Moon. --Trovatore (talk) 06:21, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I agree, if we treat these as names they don't need caps after "our"; so I fixed a few like here. Dicklyon (talk) 06:43, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
In "a solar system", it'a a lower-case common-noun phrase. In reference to our particular solar system (the star of which has the standardized astronomical name Sol), it's "the Solar System", or perhaps "the Solar system". I'm not entirely convinced that the second capital-S is necessary. Given that we're adopting a capitalization convention from astronomy, which is also well-enough attested in non-astronomical writing (e.g. journalism), one would think this is codified somewhere as to whether appellative names should be rendered as "Halley's Comet passing through the Solar System" or "Halley's comet passing through the Solar system". MoS's position right now is for the former, and should stay that way, unless it can be show that this is a hypercorrection error on our part (especially since advising the latter style will require a clarification to be inserted, i.e. another nit-picking rule, i.e. WP:CREEP).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:35, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

When capitalising the Vice Presidency of the United States

Can we please stop using Vice president or Vice presidency in some of the articles & content, related to the Vice President of the United States? When capitalising, use Vice President or Vice Presidency. GoodDay (talk) 13:09, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm game for this for "Vice President". I can't think of a time when "Vice Presidency" would be capitalized, though. One more note: when capitalized, use "Vice President" (for the United States and other countries that omit the hyphen), but use "Vice-president" (when hyphenated). —Eyer (If you reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}} to your message to let me know.) 13:38, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

@GoodDay: are you suggesting there are situations where vice presidency should be capitalized? How do you figure? The historical trends are interesting, with less capping and less hyphenation in recent decades. Dicklyon (talk) 17:24, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Subsection headings. GoodDay (talk) 17:44, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Why would it be capitalized in section headings? —Eyer (If you reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}} to your message to let me know.) 22:21, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Why would it not be? GoodDay (talk) 22:22, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
Section heading using sentence case. I would fully expect to see a section heading capitalized as "Vice presidency". —Eyer (If you reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}} to your message to let me know.) 22:25, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
It should be capitalised as "Vice Presidency", though. GoodDay (talk) 22:31, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
I guess I'm just not understanding why you claim this. We're not talking about a job title here; we're talking about a common noun. "Presidency" is a common noun, only capitalized at the beginning of a sentence or section header. "Vice presidency," too, is a common noun, only capitalized at the beginning of a sentence or section header. "Vice" and "presidency" are two separate words, so when capitalized, only "Vice" would get a capital "v". The "p" in "presidency" would be lowercase. —Eyer (If you reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}} to your message to let me know.) 22:36, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
It's one office though, not two. GoodDay (talk) 23:23, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
@GoodDay: maybe you're not familiar with MOS:HEADCAPS? Dicklyon (talk) 22:54, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
That really doesn't cover what I'm pointing out. Note in article titles (for example), we have Vice President of the United States & not Vice president of the United States. GoodDay (talk) 23:22, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
In those cases, the page title is an unmodified job title, so capitalization of each word is permitted from MOS:JOBTITLES. "Vice presidency" isn't a job title, so only MOS:HEADCAPS applies. I would expect to see pages titled "Vice President of the United States" and "Vice presidency of Kamala Harris". —Eyer (If you reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}} to your message to let me know.) 23:26, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
It should be "vice presidency" (or "vice-presidency" for offices that use the hyphen), just like "presidency". At start of a heading or sentence, "Vice presidency", "Vice-presidency". When to use "Vice President" (or "Vice-president" – see MOS:HYPHEN on not capitalizing after hyphen) in reference to someone in particular is covered at MOS:JOBTITLES (part of MOS:BIO). Discussions of job title/role stuff should really go to WT:MOSBIO. To the extent MOS:CAPS mentions this stuff, it is just summarizing the more detailed material at MOS:JOBTITLES.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:40, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

World leader bios

What's the situation concerning capitalising political offices? We decapitalised for US presidents & vice presidents & Canadian prim ministers. But we capitalise for British prime ministers, New Zealander prime ministers & Australian prime ministers? GoodDay (talk) 16:48, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

It depends on the usage, not the country. Generally capped when attached to a name, like Vice President Biden, or when about the office per se, but not when discussing vice president of the country more generically. If there are country inconsistencies, bring them up and we can work on them. Dicklyon (talk) 18:22, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
In the 'per se' situation, they're inconsistent. See Justin Trudeau (decap), Boris Johnson (cap), Scott Morrison (cap), Donald Trump (decap), Jacinda Ardern (cap). GoodDay (talk) 19:30, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
I think the ones with "the 23rd X" or "the 40th and current X" and such as not what we mean as "per se"; they're talking about a set of people, not the office. Dicklyon (talk) 21:34, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
It’s a contentious issue... but Dicklyon accurately summarizes the consensus here at MOS. I am in the minority who disagree, but accept that we lost the argument. Blueboar (talk) 00:30, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
Wow, this leads to some pretty ugly inconsistencies even within individual articles. In Boris Johnson, all in cases that aren't before names, President of Oxford Union is title case, but not president of the United States. Prime Minister is sometimes capitalized, sometimes not. It's not great.--Yaksar (let's chat) 19:01, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
What are you saying leads to these inconsistencies? Should you just fix them, maybe? Dicklyon (talk) 20:57, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
Not sure why you're being aggressive. I'd love if we could standardize it, but people seem to be feel strongly enough to resist that and I don't have the appetite to fight that fight.--Yaksar (let's chat) 02:43, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
Who's being aggressive? I certainly do understand avoiding a fight. But talking about inconsistencies is just whining if one doesn't work on it. Dicklyon (talk) 02:53, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

There are times when I wish this drive-to-decapitalise had never begun. If memory serves me correctly, there was/is resistance to it at the bios of the British prime ministers. Such huge changes like these take time & during that time, there's a lot of inconsistencies across the board. GoodDay (talk) 00:21, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

I’ve been smacked down on articles about the UK. I plan to try again over Christmas break when I have some time and energy to put into it —Eyer (If you reply, add {{reply to|Eyer}} to your message to let me know.) 00:33, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
It's probably better to think of it as a drive-toward-consistency, with our own MOS pointing the way. Sometimes caps, sometimes not, but consistent with guidelines. This does take a long time, and we've been at it for all the years I've been on WP, as inconsistency is pretty much inevitable. We do what we can, right Eyer? Dicklyon (talk) 03:03, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
Agreed. The thing is, there are a many, many style guides for English, and many people learned how to write without even reading any of them anyway. Rather, they picked up their style from a cadre of mostly like-minded elementary to high-school teachers who were following decades-old pedagogical materials that were not written by linguists, famous authors, or anyone else with a track record in English usage, just some success getting textbook review authorities to give a green-light to use of their book in schools (i.e. generally pandering to traditionalism, "respect" indoctrination, and nationalistic but anti-linguistic claims). Consequently, any random editor's own idiolect is highly unlikely to automatically align with every item in MoS. As I frequently say, 0% of editors agree with 100% of what MoS says (or with what any guideline or policy says), and 0% of line-items in MoS (or any page like it) have buy-in from 100% of editors. All of our guidance material is a best-we-can-do compromise, and compliance with any of it will never be total. Universal compliance/consistency across the site is an ideal, and failure of some line-item in MoS to reach that unattainable goalpost is not an argument against the rule, or we could have no rules about anything, since the same also applies to all policies, guidelines, and other such material. Same in the real world: laws and regulations are not invalidated because people break them.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:39, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

I wish yas luck in getting consistency across all articles, either way. I can't even get consistency on a different matter, concerning current queen consorts. There are times, when Wikipedia can be a bleeping frustrating place. GoodDay (talk) 19:23, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

If by "times" you mean "24/7", I agree. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:45, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Capitalization of "the" in a stage name

Feel free to join the discussion regarding the capitalization of "the" in a solo musician's stage name: Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Capitalization_of_"the"_in_a_stage_name. Permanent link: [34]. Some1 (talk) 01:47, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

This is already covered by MOS:THECAPS, MOS:NICKNAMETHE, and MOS:THEMUSIC, which exist for a reason.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:03, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Help with an edit request

Please see this request asking to capitalize "messiah". After reading through the MOS section on this, I still have no idea what should be done, so I thought maybe one of the Ccapitalization Wwonks might want to have a go at answering this one. Thanks, –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 17:56, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I think that this is a matter of context. Certainly, when it is used as an alternative name for Jesus (like a nickname), it would be capped. When it is used more generally, as in the Old Testament (or similar for the other Abrahamic religions) it appears to be lower-cased (per the messiah article). I think we should take a lead from the "messiah" article where I am sure it has been debated ad nausium, rather than re-inventing the wheel. In the specific case in question, "messiah" appears to refer to the concept and not the person, so it should probably remain lower-case. IMHO regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 10:22, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Capitalising "the" in wrestler names

Should we write The Rock or the Rock? Another MOS:NICKNAMETHE debate: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Professional_wrestling#Nickname_style_debate Popcornfud (talk) 10:06, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Latin content

The section #All caps and small caps says to "put [Latin quotations and terms] in italics as non-English." This (assuming it means to do it like this: ''Roma'') is incorrect per MOS:LANG; they should be wrapped in {{lang}} instead, for several reasons. Glades12 (talk) 18:54, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Request for comment: should "internet" be capitalized as a proper noun?

Discussion here. Popcornfud (talk) 17:28, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Gentle bump: more views are needed for this, if anyone has any. Popcornfud (talk) 19:05, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Hi Popcornfud. I'd say lower case is more commonplace, and this article in the NY Times suggests that it's fairly standard now. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 02:05, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
Laterthanyouthink, please add your comment in the discussion, not here. Thanks. Popcornfud (talk) 02:07, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, Popcornfud, missed your blue link before. Looks as if it's too late anyway, but I'll add my tuppence worth. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 05:02, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
Update: The result of the RfC was no consensus to change to lower-case.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:06, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Finished MOS:DIACRITICS merge from MOS:CAPS to WP:MOS

FYI

For details, please see: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Finished MOS:DIACRITICS merge.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:00, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Should titles like "editor-in-chief" and "senior editor" be capitalised?

Also, should they (editor-in-chief, editor-at-large) be hyphenated even if newspaper's/magazine's website doesn't hyphenate them?

These are, essentially, WP:JOBTITLES (even if in some cases it is an honor to be named to this position), so they should be left in lower case. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:16, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
I agree with David Eppstein that lowercase is correct for Wikipedia. I would support hyphenation of editor-in-chief and the like, regardless of a given publication's current in-house style. Good grammar and common usage should rule the day here, and in-house styles often lack consistency and/or deliberateness. —jameslucas ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ 01:37, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
Ditto. There's nothing special about these. I'm not sure why people keep looking for "Is this an exception?" cases to a broad rule. There really aren't exceptions, or we would have codified them as such.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:15, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
Ordinary non-proper nouns, like adjectives, need no capitalization. This isn't German. Support hyphenization. GPinkerton (talk) 18:43, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
Right. There is not an editor inside something called "chief", and an editor has not relocated to a spot called "large". >;-) Compounds are hyphenated for good reasons, even if some publishers have jumped on a strange "death to hyphens" bandwagon. WP isn't among them.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:33, 28 November 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, instead we're on a strange "death to capital letters" bandwagon... —David Eppstein (talk) 07:38, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
Show me any style guide anywhere advocating capitalization of "editor-in-chief" when not attached to a name. (And I'll show you a dozen saying the opposite.) This kind of petulance isn't constructive. WP is not PreservationOfTypographyMyGreatgrandfatherWouldHavePreferred-Pedia. It's not our problem, nor any kind of problem at all, that English usage (aside from marketing style) is moving away from unnecessarily capitalization. It simply is.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:50, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
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