Talk:David Flower

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Job titles s/b in lower case[edit]

@Modest Genius: Perhaps you missed this in MOS:JOBTITLES – "The formality (officialness), specificity, or unusualness of a title is not a reason to capitalize it." An editor in chief doesn't need upper case any more than a plumber's apprentice. We don't even capitalize "king", "president" or "pope", except in very specific cases, when there's only one in the world, as in "President of the United States". Chris the speller ^yack 19:22, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Chris the speller: I was looking at MOS:CAPS#Titles of people, which is more comprehensible. MOS:JOBTITLES is an incoherent mess, but as far as I can tell the usage in this article matches the examples given there in the table headed 'Unmodified, denoting a title', which are all capitalised. Flower is Editor in Chief of MNRAS, a specific position & proper noun. The text is not referring to editors-in-chief in general. Neither of those guidelines say anything about 'only one in the world', but even if they did, Flower is the only Editor in Chief of MNRAS. Modest Genius ^talk 13:10, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Modest Genius: I wouldn't put "He was the Groundskeeper at MNRAS", even if they only had one. It's just a job. Lots of places have a groundskeeper, and lots of places have an editor in chief. Dictionaries don't capitalize either one. No need to aggrandize white-collar workers. Chris the speller ^yack 14:36, 16 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Chris the speller: No, but you (presumably) would put 'Joe Biden is President of the United States' etc. because it's a proper noun, in a way that 'groundskeeper' is not. Dictionaries do not (generally) list proper nouns, so that's no guide. However it seems like a waste of time to argue about this, or to change it in articles. Modest Genius ^talk 13:02, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Modest Genius: Yes,the MoS says to capitalize "President of the United States" because it is " a formal title for a specific entity (or conventional translation thereof) is addressed as a title or position in and of itself, is not plural, is not preceded by a modifier (including a definite or indefinite article), and is not a reworded description". But "editor in chief of MNRAS" is just a job title followed by the place of employment, not a formal title for a specific entity. You're right, it's a waste of time to change it to upper case. Chris the speller ^yack 14:54, 17 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]