Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters/Archive 40
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Should Palauan chief titles be capitalised when not used before a person's name?
I tried to create a RfC at Talk:Traditional chiefs of Palau#RfC about the capitalisation of Palauan chief titles, but that didn't work. Basically the titles are always capitalised in the main newspaper of Palau (Island Times) as well as on French Wikipedia (Ibedul). In Palauan dictionaries they are considered proper nouns (see the wiktionary article Ibedul). I am not sure if you would capitalise them on Wikipedia e.g. "ibedul of Koror" as you wouldn't capitalise similar words such as king if it was not before a person's name e.g. king of France. Sahaib (talk) 14:17, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
- A title as such is never capitalized, like you say. So I'd tend to capitalize them only if a person name (bearer of the title) follows. Gawaon (talk) 16:32, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yep. There's no principle for exception just because the origin language of the title isn't English. This already came up many times and was resolved long ago with regard to European and Asian nobility and military. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:02, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
Capitalisation of "native" in King Philip's War
The word native is consistently capped in the article as a shortened form of Native Americans which might reasonably be capped per guidance but I don't think the shortened form should be? Cinderella157 (talk) 02:27, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
- That came in here, by a one-hit IP, changing "Indian" to "Native". Seems wrong to me; perhaps "native" is an OK fix; or may "Indian" is better? Dicklyon (talk) 03:57, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
- The first thing I noticed is the word "Indigenous" is not but should be capitalized when speaking about the people, whether a group or individuals, much like Native American should be. Second, the word "Indian" is not offensive to many but is to others. The normal MOS practice is that if it used in an article, leave it. Since that was not adhered to and the changes were made I say leave "Native" in the article but most definitely capitalize in this case because you are still talking about specific group of Natives rather than the fact they are native to the land. --ARoseWolf 16:40, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, absolutely what User:ARoseWolf says. Indgineous and Native are capitalized when discussing people, but not, for example, plant species. And Indian is widely used, especially when discussing historical topics. Spelling out American Indian and Native American might be preferable to just Indian and Native to avoid any confusion. In this article, when people in Canada are discussed, then Indigenous or First Nations would be preferable. Yuchitown (talk) 17:22, 7 November 2023 (UTC)Yuchitown
- "Indigenous" should not be capitalized except for a specific population who have adopted it as how they prefer to be referred to. Same goes for "native" and any other such term. It's "the indigenous peoples of Siberia" not the "the Indigenous peoples of Siberia" much less "the Indigenous Peoples of Siberia". It does appear that over the last generation or so, "Indigenous" has become a catch-all for, roughly, "Native American, Canadian First Nations, and Alaska Native". But this does not translate to every population on earth, not even every population in the Western Hemisphere. "Native American" has become a proper name, and should not be written "native American"; but don't confusingly and confusedly write "the Native people of Nauru". "Aboriginal" is taken as a proper name in the Australian context, but "the Aboriginal people of Okinawa" would be misapplying this to people outside the context in which the capitalization has become near-universally conventional. Wording like "Unlike many Indigenous groups in South America, the Lokono population is growing" that I just found in an article is an error; this use of "indigenous" is not capitalized in reliable sources except by mostly activistic and very recent ones. This is yet another area where we have to be clear that WP is not a soapbox for promotion of language-change advocacy or activism. And it really doesn't matter that some newspapers have adopting an over-capitalizing style with regard to all such words, in a desperate attempt to appease everyone all the time; WP is not written in news style as a matter of policy. Not even all the topic-focused sources on use of "Indigenous" in the North American context are on board with capitalizing it at every occurrence: 'The term "indigenous" is a common synonym for the term "American Indian and Alaska Native" and "Native American." But "indigenous" doesn't need to be capitalized unless it's used in context as a proper noun.' (Editorial Guide, US Bureau of Indian Affairs [1]). I.e., they apparently would not capitalize adjectival use, which is most use, and they definitely mean to exclude capitalization when the term is not used as a proper name for the specific groupings they identified as applicable to that specialized capital-I meaning. Whether one personally prefers this take or not is irrelevant; it demonstrates that there is not a real-world consensus on even that specific term among those centrally involved in the subject. And WP does not adopt language changes unless and until there is such a real-world consensus on the usage shift (thus our very slow uptake of singular-they, etc.). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 08:06, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
PS: The vast majority of our content appears to be using these words properly lower-cased when appropriate, including "indigenous" in reference to the Americas a whole or south of the North American populations for whom it has become conventional to use "Indigenous". But any given article somtimes has scattered exceptions in it from drive-by "corrections" (e.g. one section of Arawak had "Indigenous" capitalization inserted by a single person who also capitalized a bunch of other stuff in MOS:SIGCAPS-unaware fashion, like "International Indigenous Rights Activist" and "a Pan-Tribal & Multi-Racial Indigenous NGO"), and at least one article needs to move back to lower-case (Genetic history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 08:26, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- "Indigenous" should not be capitalized except for a specific population who have adopted it as how they prefer to be referred to. Same goes for "native" and any other such term. It's "the indigenous peoples of Siberia" not the "the Indigenous peoples of Siberia" much less "the Indigenous Peoples of Siberia". It does appear that over the last generation or so, "Indigenous" has become a catch-all for, roughly, "Native American, Canadian First Nations, and Alaska Native". But this does not translate to every population on earth, not even every population in the Western Hemisphere. "Native American" has become a proper name, and should not be written "native American"; but don't confusingly and confusedly write "the Native people of Nauru". "Aboriginal" is taken as a proper name in the Australian context, but "the Aboriginal people of Okinawa" would be misapplying this to people outside the context in which the capitalization has become near-universally conventional. Wording like "Unlike many Indigenous groups in South America, the Lokono population is growing" that I just found in an article is an error; this use of "indigenous" is not capitalized in reliable sources except by mostly activistic and very recent ones. This is yet another area where we have to be clear that WP is not a soapbox for promotion of language-change advocacy or activism. And it really doesn't matter that some newspapers have adopting an over-capitalizing style with regard to all such words, in a desperate attempt to appease everyone all the time; WP is not written in news style as a matter of policy. Not even all the topic-focused sources on use of "Indigenous" in the North American context are on board with capitalizing it at every occurrence: 'The term "indigenous" is a common synonym for the term "American Indian and Alaska Native" and "Native American." But "indigenous" doesn't need to be capitalized unless it's used in context as a proper noun.' (Editorial Guide, US Bureau of Indian Affairs [1]). I.e., they apparently would not capitalize adjectival use, which is most use, and they definitely mean to exclude capitalization when the term is not used as a proper name for the specific groupings they identified as applicable to that specialized capital-I meaning. Whether one personally prefers this take or not is irrelevant; it demonstrates that there is not a real-world consensus on even that specific term among those centrally involved in the subject. And WP does not adopt language changes unless and until there is such a real-world consensus on the usage shift (thus our very slow uptake of singular-they, etc.). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 08:06, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- Agreed, Native American or American Indian is preferred to the Indian or Native. I believe First Nation is preferred in Canada as pointed out by Dicklyon but I'm not an expert on that. --ARoseWolf 17:42, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
- I agree with Yuchitown and ARoseWolf, Indigenous, Native, Indian, First Nations, etc. should all be capitalized in this context. PersusjCP (talk) 17:57, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
- I have not seen a MOS saying to leave "Indian" when its used in an article. It's an outdated term, also confusing on an international website like Wikipedia, even if it's not offensive to some people. oncamera (talk page) 18:09, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, absolutely what User:ARoseWolf says. Indgineous and Native are capitalized when discussing people, but not, for example, plant species. And Indian is widely used, especially when discussing historical topics. Spelling out American Indian and Native American might be preferable to just Indian and Native to avoid any confusion. In this article, when people in Canada are discussed, then Indigenous or First Nations would be preferable. Yuchitown (talk) 17:22, 7 November 2023 (UTC)Yuchitown
- It should be capitalized per MOS:RACECAPS. oncamera (talk page) 18:08, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
- Context matters a lot here. If indigenous or native is merely describing people (
The native people of America
orThe indigenous peoples of the American continent
) it is lower case. In most uses of native I saw on that page, it should be capitalised (the peace agreement should include the surrender of Native guns
, same asNative Americans
) as a descriptor of a specific ethnic group, the same way Indian is. That’s the same reason Aboriginal and First Nations are capitalised (and why indigenous is mostly not). — HTGS (talk) 22:02, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
Over-capitalization of "ayurveda"
ResolvedI notice at Ayurveda that every or nearly every occurrence of the word (and the ayurvedic adjectival form) is capitalized, but it does not seem to be a proper noun, any more than chiropractic, homeopathy, traditional Chinese medicine, etc. This seems to be a clear-cut MOS:SIGCAPS and MOS:DOCTCAPS case, of boosters of the topic capitalizing it to make it seem more important. But I guess it's worth discussing before I go on a lower-casing spree. And I think it's better discussed here than at a page that tends to be beset with ayurveda proponents, though I'll drop a notice there. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 12:32, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
- I came here from that talk page notification. I'm neutral as to whether or not it should be capitalized. But I figured I should point out that there are several of us who are definitely not boosters, who watch the page for the exact reason that we don't want boosters to POV it. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:08, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
- I can't imagine telling one of the boldest to be bold, but be bold SMcCandlish. You are right and you and I know it. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 00:30, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
- I honestly have less stomach for doing this stuff than some others like Dicklyon (who knows tools like AWB/JWB a lot better than I do, anyway). I'm willing to make fairly forceful arguments against willy-nilly changing MoS, or misrepresenting/ignoring it at WP:RM, but my stress-response doesn't deal well with angry pushback about the content of particular articles that tend to be dominated by insular wikiprojects of single-minded persons with an overcapitalization addiction. The last time I waded deep into such waters I was hounded for months by a pair of such people and ended up mostly resigning from editing for about a year. (The content in question eventually ended up the way I said it should, after some RfCs and mass-RMs, but getting it there was the worst experience of my entire wiki-life.) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:42, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- SchreiberBike fixed this shortly after you brought it up here in November. No pushback. Dicklyon (talk) 17:58, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- Huzzah. Thanks, SchreiberBike. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:23, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- SchreiberBike fixed this shortly after you brought it up here in November. No pushback. Dicklyon (talk) 17:58, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- I honestly have less stomach for doing this stuff than some others like Dicklyon (who knows tools like AWB/JWB a lot better than I do, anyway). I'm willing to make fairly forceful arguments against willy-nilly changing MoS, or misrepresenting/ignoring it at WP:RM, but my stress-response doesn't deal well with angry pushback about the content of particular articles that tend to be dominated by insular wikiprojects of single-minded persons with an overcapitalization addiction. The last time I waded deep into such waters I was hounded for months by a pair of such people and ended up mostly resigning from editing for about a year. (The content in question eventually ended up the way I said it should, after some RfCs and mass-RMs, but getting it there was the worst experience of my entire wiki-life.) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:42, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
Demonyms
Is there any place in the guidelines that says demonyms (e.g., Hoosier, Carioca, New Yorker) should be capitalized? I see that demonyms are included in a list of examples of capitalized terms in MOS:HYPHENCAPS, but that does not seem sufficient so me, since it is not a direct statement saying they should be capitalized. — BarrelProof (talk) 19:24, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
- That's universal English usage, isn't it? As such, I don't think we have to repeat it. Gawaon (talk) 19:46, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
- Well, that could perhaps be said for proper names too, I guess, but we still say it explicitly. And apparently whoever wrote the Carioca article didn't know it. I suggest to put into the list that's at the beginning of MOS:PEOPLANG, a section I hadn't noticed before making that comment. It would only take one added word to include it there. Perhaps it's already covered by "nationalities, ethnic and religious groups, and the like". I was hoping to find the word "demonym". How about adding a shortcut called MOS:DEMONYM that links to that and including it in the {{Shortcut}} at the top of that section? That's currently a red link. — BarrelProof (talk) 20:15, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
- Carioca is probably somewhat of a special case – the article frequently puts in it italics and lowercase, treating it as a Portuguese rather than English word. As such, it is of course not capitalized – though, once considered as loaned into English, it is.
- Generally, I'm certainly not opposed to adding "demonyms" to the section you mention, though I don't think an extra shortcut is needed for it. Gawaon (talk) 20:30, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
- I would think Portuguese would also capitalize this when it's used as a noun; that language lower-cases demonymic, national, etc. derivatives that are used adjectivally. Same with Spanish and many other languages: he is an Americano but your accent is americano. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 06:10, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
- Are you confusing that with French, maybe? I'm pretty that sure that both Portuguese and Spanish lower-case demonyms both as adjectives and as nouns, and their Wiktionaries agree (pt:americano, es:americano). Many languages do so, see the translations listed for wikt:American#Noun. Gawaon (talk) 21:05, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
- Possibly. Not what I was taught in Spanish class (which was to just lower-case the adjectival usage), but that was a lifetime ago, and specific to a particular form of Spanish anyway. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:28, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- Are you confusing that with French, maybe? I'm pretty that sure that both Portuguese and Spanish lower-case demonyms both as adjectives and as nouns, and their Wiktionaries agree (pt:americano, es:americano). Many languages do so, see the translations listed for wikt:American#Noun. Gawaon (talk) 21:05, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
- I would think Portuguese would also capitalize this when it's used as a noun; that language lower-cases demonymic, national, etc. derivatives that are used adjectivally. Same with Spanish and many other languages: he is an Americano but your accent is americano. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 06:10, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
- Well, that could perhaps be said for proper names too, I guess, but we still say it explicitly. And apparently whoever wrote the Carioca article didn't know it. I suggest to put into the list that's at the beginning of MOS:PEOPLANG, a section I hadn't noticed before making that comment. It would only take one added word to include it there. Perhaps it's already covered by "nationalities, ethnic and religious groups, and the like". I was hoping to find the word "demonym". How about adding a shortcut called MOS:DEMONYM that links to that and including it in the {{Shortcut}} at the top of that section? That's currently a red link. — BarrelProof (talk) 20:15, 9 October 2023 (UTC)
Men's Double Sculls
... is just one example of an event name that's over-capitalized in hundreds of articles. "Women's 100m Breaststroke" is another (not to mention that it needs a space between the number and the m). There are dozens more such events. They're mostly the same set of articles, e.g. East Germany at the 1980 Summer Olympics, across various countries and years, and some non-Olympic articles, too. Sorry I'm not able to work on those for now. Dicklyon (talk) 06:16, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
- Seems like routine MOS:SPORTCAPS and MOS:NUM cleanup to me. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:28, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
DEFAULTSORT capitalization conventions?
I notice an awful lot of DEFAULTSORT keys are capitalized like title case, as opposed to sentence case. Is there a guideline some place that would suggest one way or the other? Dicklyon (talk) 21:04, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
- I took a look and see it is a convention going back a long time to capitalize every word in defaultsort and sortkey. I can see it discussed in the moving forward section in this archive. I didn't really read very much to figure out as to why it has always been done that way. Maybe ask an expert in the categorization area? Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:01, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
- Sortkeys used to be case sensitive, so it was decided to capitalize every word. Case sensitivity ceased quite some time ago, but there's no reason to change existing keys. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 00:10, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
- @Michael Bednarek: Sounds reasonable if it's not hurting anything. Is it usually used with new keys too, 50/50, or more sentence case with any sorts newly created? Fyunck(click) (talk) 01:28, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
- OK, if sort keys are not case sensitive, it's a non-issue. So in doing case fixes, it's not important whether they hit the sort key or not. Dicklyon (talk) 19:17, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
- Might as well remove such sort keys in cases in which they are not actually necessary, and fix the title-casing of necessary ones so that the case matches the article name, since it's just confusing code bloat. Since it doesn't affect output for the reader or fix genuine technical breakage, I guess that would be subject to WP:MEATBOT, i.e. something that should be done in the course of an edit that also makes at least one substantive improvement. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:26, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- Sortkeys used to be case sensitive, so it was decided to capitalize every word. Case sensitivity ceased quite some time ago, but there's no reason to change existing keys. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 00:10, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
Barbie shows with embedded titles?
In the redirect titles Barbie & Her Sisters in A Pony Tale and Barbie and Her Sisters in The Great Puppy Adventure, are "A Pony Tale" and "The Great Puppy Adventure" properly treated as embedded titles, per MOS:THETITLE? Or should the "A" and "The" be lowercase? I'm thinking they're embedded titles, but the user marking them as "miscapitalized" disagrees. Dicklyon (talk) 03:31, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- To summarize my previous comments, this is a pretty straightforward case of MOS:TITLECAPS. Words like "a" and "the" are never capitalized in a work title unless it is the first or last word of a title, or after a colon or dash. The "embedded titles" MOS:THETITLE alludes to is referring to titles of other works embedded in a title, i.e. a title within a title.
A Pony Tale
andThe Great Puppy Adventure
aresubtitlespart of the regular title, which follow TITLECAPS. InfiniteNexus (talk) 04:38, 19 September 2023 (UTC)- But "An indefinite or definite article is capitalized only when at the start of a title, subtitle, or embedded title or subtitle." So if it's a subtitle, that would again make it capitalized, no? Dicklyon (talk) 04:56, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- Sorry, I misspoke.
A Pony Tale
is not a subtitle, as there is no colon or en dash. It should therefore follow the capitalization conventions of TITLECAPS, which says that a and the are not capitalized. InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:41, 19 September 2023 (UTC)- Side question: where do you find guidance that subtitles can be placed after dashes? All I can find is MOS:TITLEPUNCT, which includes "Where subtitle punctuation is unclear (e.g. because the subtitle is given on a separate line on the cover or a poster), use a colon and a space, not a dash, comma, or other punctuation, to separate the title elements. If there are two subtitles, a dash can be used between the second and third elements." That seems quite narrow. ~TPW 14:23, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- One example would be the recent Mission: Impossible films. But usually, a dash is used as a "secondary" subtitle. InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:41, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- Just as a point of order regarding the M:I films, that was largely a special case because having two colons in the title would be awkward (and, no, we are not omitting the colon from Mission: Impossible, so don't even think about it). It fortunately has been consistent with outside-Wikipedia practice for those films as well. oknazevad (talk) 00:52, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, and we also usually follow the formatting used in the billing block, we don't arbitrarily decide how to punctuate subtitles. InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:36, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- Just as a point of order regarding the M:I films, that was largely a special case because having two colons in the title would be awkward (and, no, we are not omitting the colon from Mission: Impossible, so don't even think about it). It fortunately has been consistent with outside-Wikipedia practice for those films as well. oknazevad (talk) 00:52, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- One example would be the recent Mission: Impossible films. But usually, a dash is used as a "secondary" subtitle. InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:41, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- Side question: where do you find guidance that subtitles can be placed after dashes? All I can find is MOS:TITLEPUNCT, which includes "Where subtitle punctuation is unclear (e.g. because the subtitle is given on a separate line on the cover or a poster), use a colon and a space, not a dash, comma, or other punctuation, to separate the title elements. If there are two subtitles, a dash can be used between the second and third elements." That seems quite narrow. ~TPW 14:23, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- Sorry, I misspoke.
- But "An indefinite or definite article is capitalized only when at the start of a title, subtitle, or embedded title or subtitle." So if it's a subtitle, that would again make it capitalized, no? Dicklyon (talk) 04:56, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- To
A Pony Tale
andThe Great Puppy Adventure
(however capitalised) these are not embedded titles as described in the guidance. They do have a semblance of being a subtitle but are not formatted as a subtitle by using a dash, colon or parenthesis - nor do I see this being done in sources. Consequently, I don't think we should treat this as a subtitle in respect to the guidance that would lead us to capitalise the words in question. A Google search looking at the usual movie sites that are often used as sources show mixed capitalisation on the point in question. If we defer to the general advice at MOS:CAPS, we would lowercase the subject words. That would be my reading of things. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:11, 19 September 2023 (UTC)- Definitely not subtitles. But structured as embedded titles, whether "A Pony Tale" is a true title or not. Dicklyon (talk) 15:26, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- Dicklyon, they are not embedded titles, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of MOS:THETITLE. "Embedded title" means that the title of Work A is being quoted in the title of Work B. For example,
Lorem Ipsum of A Christmas Carol
, orLorem Ipsum of Lorem Ipsum and The Odyssey
. InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:41, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- Dicklyon, they are not embedded titles, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of MOS:THETITLE. "Embedded title" means that the title of Work A is being quoted in the title of Work B. For example,
- It should be capitalized in accordance with MOS:TITLECAPS not because it is a subtitle, but because it is part of the title of the work. InfiniteNexus (talk) 21:41, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- I don't see that I am disagreeing with you at all. Cinderella157 (talk) 22:50, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- Looks like everyone is on the same subtitle page on this. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:58, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- So everyone's good with lowercase articles in these? I have a crazy backwards feeling somehow. Dicklyon (talk) 04:20, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- Everyone is okay with uppercased titles, as embedding titles. I thought that's what you had said above. And by the way, a quick quiz, how many of the 297 moons in the Solar System have lowercased names? Randy Kryn (talk) 04:42, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- Uppercase "A Pony Tail" and "The Great Puppy Adventure" as embedded titles? I read the discussion as nixing those capped A and The. Clarify? Dicklyon (talk) 04:50, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus uppercases the 'The'. Wouldn't Barbie and her Sisters in a Pony Tail change the meaning or the embedded descriptor which is featured as an embedded title in the film itself? Randy Kryn (talk) 05:05, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- For the last time, those are not embedded titles.
; or,
–style subtitles that were popular in classic literature are no longer prevalent. Per MOS:TITLECAPS, words like "the" and "in" are not capitalized in titles of works; this is an extremely straightforward case, and I can guarantee you every single editor from WP:FILM will tell you the same thing. InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:20, 27 September 2023 (UTC)- I'm glad it's for the last time so you won't reply, but either the embedded title of the film's name is uppercased or the film itself should be renamed The Pony Tail on Wikipedia. It's a clear-cut case, but the opposite of what you are arguing. MOS:TITLECAPS is a guideline, and guidelines include the common sense language "...it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply". Randy Kryn (talk) 05:34, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- I really don't understand how editors continue to misinterpret MOS:THETITLE when it discusses "embedded titles". The example used there is
"An Examination of The Americans: The Anachronisms in FX's Period Spy Drama"
, in which"An Examination of The Americans: The Anachronisms in FX's Period Spy Drama"
is the title of a chapter andThe Americans
is the title of a TV series. To copy-and-paste my earlier comment, "embedded title" means that the title of Work A is being quoted in the title of Work B. There is consensus above that we are not dealing with subtitles due to the lack of a colon or dash; it is exceedingly rare for an exception be granted, and I see no reason an exception should be granted in this case. InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:56, 27 September 2023 (UTC) - Duh! This is not an embedded title nor a subtitle for reasons already stated. The guidance is clear as to what constitutes an embedded title. Sources don't truncate the fuller title that is being used. I don't see sources doing this so nor should we. Cinderella157 (talk) 06:21, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- The full title has plenty of sources which quote it exactly as titled, with the uppercased 'A'. The on-screen title has the uppercasing, which is logical given the wording. The words 'Barbie and Her Sisters' are presented as if they were 'starring' followed by the title of the film, but since the full title includes the starring roles then it acts as an embedded title (per common sense, which should take preference over strictly-following-guidelines). Randy Kryn (talk) 13:20, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- We generally do not conform to how organizations style their names or trademarks, for example, even if they consistently use all-caps or capitalize their leading "the". Additionally, making an exception here would be breaching the long-standing naming conventions of the film project:
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film)
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
- Alvin and the Chipmunks (film)
- Raya and the Last Dragon
- The Falcon and the Winter Soldier
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians (TV series)
- Ant-Man and the Wasp
- InfiniteNexus (talk) 16:40, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- InfiniteNexus, please note that not one of your examples includes wording similar to Barbie and Her Sisters in A Pony Tail. Doctor Strange may come close if you squint a little, but no, that title actually describes where Doctor Strange has found himself in. In this and the other Barbie films it's like Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen if that film was so-named. Big difference. That the studio puts the correct title styling in the clearest terms it could in the film's title sequence and film trailer seems evident and important to this discussion. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:31, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
- It is also true that there are a good proportion of sources that don't cap "the" and "a" in these titles - sufficient for us to revert to the general advice at MOS:CAPS - which is the common sense approach. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:32, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
- If I hadn't nailed that horse down, it would have nuzzled up to those bars, bent 'em apart with its teeth, and VOOM! Cinderella157 (talk) 02:42, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
- OK, I agree that we disagree. On this one, I'm more on Randy's side than Cinderella's, which makes my head spin, but that's where I am. Dicklyon (talk) 04:07, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
- And I'm actually agreeing with Dicklyon here. The titles are clearly A Pony Tale and The Great Puppy Adventure - Barbie & her Sisters is almost a parenthetical, as in the example from MOS:TITLE,
"(Now and Then There's) A Fool Such as I"
. See also Barbie in A Mermaid Tale, etc. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:01, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
- And I'm actually agreeing with Dicklyon here. The titles are clearly A Pony Tale and The Great Puppy Adventure - Barbie & her Sisters is almost a parenthetical, as in the example from MOS:TITLE,
- OK, I agree that we disagree. On this one, I'm more on Randy's side than Cinderella's, which makes my head spin, but that's where I am. Dicklyon (talk) 04:07, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
- We generally do not conform to how organizations style their names or trademarks, for example, even if they consistently use all-caps or capitalize their leading "the". Additionally, making an exception here would be breaching the long-standing naming conventions of the film project:
- The full title has plenty of sources which quote it exactly as titled, with the uppercased 'A'. The on-screen title has the uppercasing, which is logical given the wording. The words 'Barbie and Her Sisters' are presented as if they were 'starring' followed by the title of the film, but since the full title includes the starring roles then it acts as an embedded title (per common sense, which should take preference over strictly-following-guidelines). Randy Kryn (talk) 13:20, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- I really don't understand how editors continue to misinterpret MOS:THETITLE when it discusses "embedded titles". The example used there is
- I'm glad it's for the last time so you won't reply, but either the embedded title of the film's name is uppercased or the film itself should be renamed The Pony Tail on Wikipedia. It's a clear-cut case, but the opposite of what you are arguing. MOS:TITLECAPS is a guideline, and guidelines include the common sense language "...it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply". Randy Kryn (talk) 05:34, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- For the last time, those are not embedded titles.
- Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus uppercases the 'The'. Wouldn't Barbie and her Sisters in a Pony Tail change the meaning or the embedded descriptor which is featured as an embedded title in the film itself? Randy Kryn (talk) 05:05, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- Uppercase "A Pony Tail" and "The Great Puppy Adventure" as embedded titles? I read the discussion as nixing those capped A and The. Clarify? Dicklyon (talk) 04:50, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- Everyone is okay with uppercased titles, as embedding titles. I thought that's what you had said above. And by the way, a quick quiz, how many of the 297 moons in the Solar System have lowercased names? Randy Kryn (talk) 04:42, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- So everyone's good with lowercase articles in these? I have a crazy backwards feeling somehow. Dicklyon (talk) 04:20, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- Looks like everyone is on the same subtitle page on this. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:58, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- I don't see that I am disagreeing with you at all. Cinderella157 (talk) 22:50, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- Definitely not subtitles. But structured as embedded titles, whether "A Pony Tale" is a true title or not. Dicklyon (talk) 15:26, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
I've exhausted everything I have to say, but I'll repeat that we always conform to our own MoS rather than follow how organizations (or even sources) style the trademarks they own. For film articles in particular, we never conform to stylization in logos. But I'm not going to continue wasting time pushing a change to a set of redirects about a series of obscure, animated, low-budget, direct-to-DVD films. So, do as you please. InfiniteNexus (talk) 14:46, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
- Same. I'm not going to waste more time on this. I just wanted to know whether others agreed that these are cases of embedded titles, and I found that opinions are mixed on that point. For me, the substantive issue is whether to "fix" these, or to remove the redirect tag that says these are miscapitalizations. To prevent this coming up more in the linked miscapitalized redirects report, I'll remove that tag, and just call it "other capitalization". Dicklyon (talk) 16:45, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
- That seems reasonable, since whether they are "errors" is actually dubious. See also footnote "i" at MOS:TITLES:
... the TV-episode article Marge Simpson in: "Screaming Yellow Honkers", the title of which would be given as "Marge Simpson in: 'Screaming Yellow Honkers'" in running text.
What we have here is basically the same kind of case, except that the "story name" within the real-world work title doesn't have its own quotation marks around it. I think I would be inclined to treat these as embedded titles. I could write a paper titled "The Impact of Harr's A Civil Action" and a book titled Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and 21st-century Views on Race, both with embedded titles treated as titles (no lowercasing of the A or The). If we already have a MOS:TITLES rule addressing "Screaming Yellow Honkers" as an embedded title albeit a fictive one that doesn't actually refer to a separate work, what would be the rationale for not applying it to the Barbie cases? (Someone might even make a MOS:CONFORM argument to change them to Barbie and Her Sisters in "The Great Puppy Adventure", etc., though I don't think I would go that far.) Anyway, the Barbie cases are qualitatively different from the other works mentioned as allegedly analogous (Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, etc.), which are cases of a character name followed by a situation or nemesis or partner. The only at-first-dubious one in that set was Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings in which it was not immediately clear whether there was a legend (real or fictive) about ten rings or a work (real or fictive) titled The Legend of the Ten Rings, but it turned out to be the former. We might have a problem if something called Harry Potter and [t|T]he Book of the Spirits came out. We'd have to determine whether this refered to something described as "the book of the spirts" or something literally titled The Book of the Spirits within the narrative. Logicking this stuff out leans me more and more toward accepting Barbie and Her Sisters in The Great Puppy Adventure as preferred by the publisher, because it appears to mean "Barbie and her sisters in the story named 'The Great Puppy Adventure'" not "Barbie and her sisters in an adventure about puppies, and it happened to be great". It's the same "character-name[s] in story-name" format as "Marge Simpson in: 'Screaming Yellow Honkers'", just with less punctuation (and the colon in the latter was really quite unnecessary). That said, the usage in independent sources is mixed; I think this is because of the amgiguity caused by there being no punctuation at all. If the title had been Barbie and Her Sisters in "The Great Puppy Adventure" (or even Barbie and Her Sisters in: The Great Puppy Adventure), there would be no question at all in anyone's mind, on-site or off-site. It's not a hill I would die on, because of the general default at the top of MOS:CAPS to go lower-case if in doubt, but I've argued elsewhere that more specific guidelines like MOS:PROPERNAME (and MOS:TITLES by extension) are necessarily codified exceptions to this principle or they could not exist in the guidelines at all.Side point: There is not actually a requirement that a subtitle be preceded by a colon or dash, or be wrapped in parentheses (round brackets), to be a subtitle. A lot of works from the mid-20th century on back used other formats, e.g. The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, and these formats varied a lot. E.g. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus; these were sometimes presented without any punctuation (Foo or The Bar) in the original publications, though punctuation is sometimes added by later writer for clarity or to comply with a particular style guide. Sometimes "being" or other terms were used in place of "or". An unusual modern case is Star Trek Into Darkness, in which it turned out reliably sourceable that this was word-play, both meaning "a star trek into darkness" ("a trek into darness, among the stars", "a trek between the stars, leading into darkness", however you like to parse it) and being a subtitle to be interpreted as "Star Trek: Into Darkness", with the colon intentionally omitted to produce the ambiguity. It's why our article is not at Star Trek into Darkness or Star Trek: Into Darkness, despite both forms attested in RS and fierce arguments here for one or the other. (Meanwhile the "exception" at Spider-Man Far From Home is no such case and has an improperly capitalized "From", against MOS:5LETTER, simply because of a lame fanboi WP:FALSECONSENSUS rooted in the WP:CSF problem: there's nearly no independnent RS coverage outside of entertainment news material and virtually all such writing uses a 4-letter rule instead of MoS's 5-letter rule. If it had been "high cinema" covered by academic film journals, they would have consistently rendered it Spider-Man: Far from Home and so would we.) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 04:28, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- That seems reasonable, since whether they are "errors" is actually dubious. See also footnote "i" at MOS:TITLES:
Clarification request: capitalization of "the sun" etc.?
I'm in a discussion with another user about the exact meaning of the sentence "Names of planets, moons, asteroids, comets, stars, constellations, and galaxies are proper names and begin with a capital letter" in the MOS:CELESTIALBODIES section. My understanding is that this does not apply to the earth (our planet), the sun (the star it turns around), and the moon (its natural satellite), as these are already covered by the previous paragraph, which gives more detailed rules. (Capitalization in an astronomical context and in personifications, but not otherwise.) Their understanding, however, is that the sentence nevertheless refers to these three bodies too so that references to them are always to be capitalized.
What's the consensus interpretation here, assuming there is one? Maybe the page could be improved to clearly resolve the apparent ambiguity, one way or the other? Gawaon (talk) 14:28, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- The wording "Names of planets, moons, asteroids, comets, stars, constellations, and galaxies are proper names and begin with a capital letter is very clear. Wikipedia uppercases proper names, and of course this applies to the Sun, Moon, Earth and the rest. If anything this should be made clearer. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:38, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Perhaps the guideline could be clarified simply by adding other at the beginning of that sentence: "Other names of planets, moons ...", since the foregoing paragraph details when earth, moon, and sun should (and should not) be considered proper names. Deor (talk) 15:47, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- This perennial topic has had discussions galore. Do you really think the Sun (the big burning nuclear furnace that keeps us all alive and editing), Moon (that huge rock-like thing that keeps attempting to fall onto...) Earth (hmmmm, no comment) and Solar System don't have proper names? For example, the Moon article, in its section on naming, says "Moon" is a proper name. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:52, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- They're not always used as proper names. Or do you think that ""Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men" and "When the sun beats down and burns the tar up on the roof" contain incorrect lowercasing? Deor (talk) 16:36, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- That tar is burning because of the intense heat of the sunlight. Since you are going on about song lyrics how about "When the moon hits your eye/Like a big pizza pie". That's amore! (and lowercased because it alludes to moonlight) Randy Kryn (talk) 22:53, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- They're not always used as proper names. Or do you think that ""Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men" and "When the sun beats down and burns the tar up on the roof" contain incorrect lowercasing? Deor (talk) 16:36, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- I, for one, would be happy with the suggested addition of "Other", as it seems quite well to reflect the intended meaning of the rule. See also the wording over at Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Celestial bodies, which includes the example: "The sun was over the mountain top" – very clearly using lowercase for what's evidently a reference to our star as visible in the sky. Gawaon (talk) 16:45, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- I have now inserted "Other" as suggested to make it clear that that paragraph is not to overwrite what the previous paragraph said to regard to "Sun, Earth" etc. That by itself should be a fairly uncontroversial change as everybody can read what the previous paragraph say, and why should it be there if it had no meaning? Gawaon (talk) 16:46, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- Randy Kryn, I see you have reverted the change "Other names of planets" which Deor had first suggested and which I had then applied. I must say I'm a bit frustrated to this. You can't act as if you own the MoS, preventing even the smallest changes to make the wording clearer. You know, as well as everybody else, that the preceding section says: "The words Sun, Earth, Moon and Solar System are capitalized (as proper names) when used to refer to a specific celestial body in an astronomical context" (emphasis added) – but not outside of an astronomical context, even when referring to the specific celestial bodies. The MoS itself gives "The sun was over the mountain top" as example for lower-case usage, and you yourself have admitted that lower-case it at least possible in phrases such as "They waited for the moon to rise."
- Anyway, what do you think about inserting the "other" elsewhere and writing "Names of other planets, moons" etc.? After all, whether "the sun/moon" etc. are indeed names or just generic words which, when used with the definite article, refer to the nearest such object without thereby becoming proper nouns is very much part of the question. (Just like people living near a city might routinely refer to it as "the city", without "the city" therefore becoming a proper name and requiring a capital letter.) So by pushing the "other" back we prevent people from getting confused but without having to address the thorny (and not objectively decidable) question whether or not "the moon/Moon" is indeed a proper noun.
- I'll hope others will weigh in on this too. Gawaon (talk) 11:57, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- Gawaon, please do not add to or try to "explain" long standing language in the MOS then, if reverted, become frustrated, thanks. "Other" is not needed, as there is no contradiction to address. Proper names are proper names throughout the English language, and have been since the beginning of time when English was first grunted in the caves. The opening paragraph, although it could be written better or even eliminated, just makes clear to editors who may not totally understand proper names that words like "sun" when it means "sunshine", or the common use of "earth" for soil, or that the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, are not uppercased. As to your example, "the city" is an example of a general use nickname but not a proper name as it does not denote to a worldwide readership which city. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:58, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- How come then that "the sun" is considerable more frequent in written English than "the Sun" [2] and likewise "the moon" than "the Moon" [3]? Has it ever, for just one second, occurred to you that you could be wrong rather than the wast majority of the English-speaking world? Also, assuming that there ever is a human colony on Mars, would they really go on using "the Moon" (whether capitalized or not) to refer to Earth's moon? Maybe they would rather give it a proper proper name (say "Luna") and instead start to use the collective noun "the moons" to refer to the moons of their own planet? As long as there is no such colony, we simply cannot know that, and so the question whether "the moon/Moon" is a proper name or rather a definitive use case of a common noun is undecidable. Gawaon (talk) 13:11, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- The Mars colony is an interesting scenerio, thanks. I would think they would still call the Moon the Moon and the Sun the Sun, etc. Their own multiple moons already have names, which would be used, and when they strolled under the moons they would lowercase "moons" as a general name. The use of Sun and Moon in ngrams and such has been discussed and decided many times on Wikipedia, retaining the present usage. Yes, I was wrong once, in 1995 (or was it '94?). Randy Kryn (talk) 14:31, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- How come then that "the sun" is considerable more frequent in written English than "the Sun" [2] and likewise "the moon" than "the Moon" [3]? Has it ever, for just one second, occurred to you that you could be wrong rather than the wast majority of the English-speaking world? Also, assuming that there ever is a human colony on Mars, would they really go on using "the Moon" (whether capitalized or not) to refer to Earth's moon? Maybe they would rather give it a proper proper name (say "Luna") and instead start to use the collective noun "the moons" to refer to the moons of their own planet? As long as there is no such colony, we simply cannot know that, and so the question whether "the moon/Moon" is a proper name or rather a definitive use case of a common noun is undecidable. Gawaon (talk) 13:11, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- Gawaon, please do not add to or try to "explain" long standing language in the MOS then, if reverted, become frustrated, thanks. "Other" is not needed, as there is no contradiction to address. Proper names are proper names throughout the English language, and have been since the beginning of time when English was first grunted in the caves. The opening paragraph, although it could be written better or even eliminated, just makes clear to editors who may not totally understand proper names that words like "sun" when it means "sunshine", or the common use of "earth" for soil, or that the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, are not uppercased. As to your example, "the city" is an example of a general use nickname but not a proper name as it does not denote to a worldwide readership which city. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:58, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- This perennial topic has had discussions galore. Do you really think the Sun (the big burning nuclear furnace that keeps us all alive and editing), Moon (that huge rock-like thing that keeps attempting to fall onto...) Earth (hmmmm, no comment) and Solar System don't have proper names? For example, the Moon article, in its section on naming, says "Moon" is a proper name. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:52, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- I think the phrase "astronomical contexts" is causing some of the problem here. I would say that the name of the astronomical object should always be capitalized. Whenever you mean the specific ball of hot gas, that's the Sun; it's a proper name. That's true whether you're talking about astronomy or not.
- When you mean the light or heat that comes from it, that should be lowercase. When you mean the disk of light in the sky — I think that's an in-between situation. So for example it's OK with me if Wikipedia articles say the sun rises earlier in the summer; I personally use a capital letter for this situation, but I recognize it as different, because you're not really talking about the astronomical object here (the Sun doesn't rise at all; rather, the Earth rotates so you get a different view of it). --Trovatore (talk) 18:54, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- The moon or sun rising or setting is clearly not an astronomical context; it's a very human-centric viewpoint. Dicklyon (talk) 20:13, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- What I'm saying is, the guidance should be clarified. The name of the astronomical object should always be capitalized, even if not in an astronomical context. However, many common uses are not really about the astronomical object, and they can stay lowercase. --Trovatore (talk) 20:19, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- What clarification would you propose? Currently the main page requests capitalization "in a scientific or astronomical context", but not "in general use". That's not so bad, and I suppose this wording expresses a consensus view that can't be changed easily. Now, how would you decide whether a usage outside of a scientific or astronomical context is about the astronomical object? To me that seems trickier than simply saying "just use lower-case in such cases", as the current rules do. Gawaon (talk) 21:07, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- Well, aboutness can be fraught, but it is really the center of a lot of editorial decisions. I would change the guidance to put it in terms of aboutness, and then give a couple of examples and let people take it from there. It shouldn't be a huge difference in practice, but it's closer to the real issue.
- Maybe a test case: suppose that for some reason, in an article that's not particularly scientific, you had cause to say that something was as hot as the surface of the Sun. I would argue that, even though the broader context is not especially scientific or astronomical, the capital S is basically required there. --Trovatore (talk) 21:24, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- That example would of course be uppercased, as "surface of the Sun" refers directly to the star, which has a proper name (Sun). Dicklyon is correct about the sun setting, which has been lowercased for as long as I've been editing. This doesn't seem hard, if the language refers to the Moon, Sun, or Earth when discussing the moon, the star, or the planet, then they have proper names. I don't know even know why we are discussing this, seems like a 1930's comedy (which may be because I'm watching one now, so my feeling watching it is subjective and carried over as I type - sort of like the subjective language that some people want to place onto these proper names). The language could be simplified to "uppercased when used as proper names" and just get rid of the "astronomical" and other contested and confusing language (then clarify with a few examples, but most editors can recognize a proper name when they see one). Randy Kryn (talk) 22:43, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- I mean, I agree with you, but I'm not sure the current language that references "context" expresses that idea clearly. It could be interpreted as saying that if you talk about the star, but in some non-astronomical broader context, you'd lowercase it. The "proper names" language is an interesting idea; I could maybe support it, but it does leave some cases a bit unclear. Does the disk of light in the sky have a proper name? It seems like it reasonably could; there's no reason abstract objects can't be named. --Trovatore (talk) 23:07, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- That abstract disc in the sky is the Sun (didn't they learn you nuttin' in school?). As for its proper name, the language is already present in the guideline "Names of planets, moons, asteroids, comets, stars, constellations, and galaxies are proper names and begin with a capital letter. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:48, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- I mean, I agree with you, but I'm not sure the current language that references "context" expresses that idea clearly. It could be interpreted as saying that if you talk about the star, but in some non-astronomical broader context, you'd lowercase it. The "proper names" language is an interesting idea; I could maybe support it, but it does leave some cases a bit unclear. Does the disk of light in the sky have a proper name? It seems like it reasonably could; there's no reason abstract objects can't be named. --Trovatore (talk) 23:07, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- I agree with the capitalization in this example ("as hot as the surface of the Sun"), but I'd say that the wording "surface of the Sun" by itself suggests a scientific context – that's hardly everyday language. In general, everyday usage, on the other hand, somebody might say "as hot as the sun" in a metaphorical rather than scientific sense ("very, very hot"), and in such a context lower case would be fine and usual. Likewise with the phrase "reach for the moon", which Randy Kryn once used as example. It has no scientific, let alone astronomical context, but simply means "try to do something very difficult or impossible", so lower case is fine here (and indeed common in general English usage, which Wikipedia largely strives to follow). However, when pursuing the "proper name" idea, it seems hard to explain why such usages should be lower-cased, or even why "the sun rises" should be lower-cased – after all, they clearly do refer, in some way or other, to our planet's star and moon, both of which have a name and are identified by that name in all these phrases. So capitalization depends not really on the name, but rather on the context in which that name is used. Gawaon (talk) 05:36, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- That example would of course be uppercased, as "surface of the Sun" refers directly to the star, which has a proper name (Sun). Dicklyon is correct about the sun setting, which has been lowercased for as long as I've been editing. This doesn't seem hard, if the language refers to the Moon, Sun, or Earth when discussing the moon, the star, or the planet, then they have proper names. I don't know even know why we are discussing this, seems like a 1930's comedy (which may be because I'm watching one now, so my feeling watching it is subjective and carried over as I type - sort of like the subjective language that some people want to place onto these proper names). The language could be simplified to "uppercased when used as proper names" and just get rid of the "astronomical" and other contested and confusing language (then clarify with a few examples, but most editors can recognize a proper name when they see one). Randy Kryn (talk) 22:43, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- What clarification would you propose? Currently the main page requests capitalization "in a scientific or astronomical context", but not "in general use". That's not so bad, and I suppose this wording expresses a consensus view that can't be changed easily. Now, how would you decide whether a usage outside of a scientific or astronomical context is about the astronomical object? To me that seems trickier than simply saying "just use lower-case in such cases", as the current rules do. Gawaon (talk) 21:07, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- What I'm saying is, the guidance should be clarified. The name of the astronomical object should always be capitalized, even if not in an astronomical context. However, many common uses are not really about the astronomical object, and they can stay lowercase. --Trovatore (talk) 20:19, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
- The moon or sun rising or setting is clearly not an astronomical context; it's a very human-centric viewpoint. Dicklyon (talk) 20:13, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
When our manual of style has micro-fine shades of meaning, as it does here, I do not believe it serves anyone. That's why there are perennial discussions, because we have rules that are based on subtle differences of context. I believe that words like sun and moon and earth never need be capitalized because it's always obvious what's being talked about. If the word we use to refer to a concept has become a common noun, it's always a common noun. There is no situation in which capitalizing "sun" is going to make it clearer to a reader that the in that instance the word means "the star around which the earth orbits" that cannot be made even clearer just be using clearer words. Moreover, that capitalization does nothing for anyone with a vision impairment; those individuals have no choice but to depend on context. Perennial arguments like this are evidence that we should shift to lower case in all contexts, and trust writing to get the job done. What's the value of creating discord and excluding the visually impaired by digging in heels about this?~TPW 13:24, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- I think any suggestion that would allow The Apollo project achieved the first human landing on the moon is a non-starter. Also not really following how capitalization "excludes" the visually impaired. --Trovatore (talk) 20:30, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- Yeah, I'd say that such usage must be capitalized, while "they waited for the moon to rise" must be lower-case. So the most simple solutions are (sadly) unavailable. Gawaon (talk) 20:38, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- You say "must be capitalized", but sources mostly don't. Nor with the sun. Dicklyon (talk) 15:28, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- Interesting. I googled "nasa return to moon" and while NASA itself uses capitalization (as do we), most other sources don't. Personally I wouldn't be opposed to a "largely lower-case" resolution, I just think it's important to have a rule that's clear and easy to follow. Gawaon (talk) 16:23, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- I googled a bit further to see how others handle this and the first consistent and simple rule I found is from the MLA Style Center: "We usually lowercase sun, moon, and earth, but ... when the does not precede the name of the planet, when earth is not part of an idiomatic expression, or when other planets are mentioned, we capitalize earth." Examples include: "The earth revolves around the sun" and "The space shuttle will return to Earth next year".
- Personally, I would be happy with such a simple and consistent rule. However, it deviates significantly from Wikipedia's current usage, which is to use capitalization in many cases (but without an easily detectable consistent pattern). Gawaon (talk) 16:44, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- I would prefer that, too. We also over-capitalize Universe and Solar System imho. Dicklyon (talk) 17:27, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- When sources don't support a style that is also inconsistent, that's strong justification for a request for comment. ~TPW 18:05, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- True Pagan Warrior, I see you have started RFCs regarding this manual before, would you be willing to do one for more consistent lower-casing of "the sun" etc. too? I would support it, but I have no experience with starting RFCs. Here's the text I would propose to use instead of the current first paragraph of MOS:CELESTIALBODIES (but it's just a suggestion, I'm open for improvements):
Gawaon (talk) 17:46, 20 September 2023 (UTC)The words sun, moon, solar system, and universe are not generally capitalized (India was the fifth nation to land on the moon; The solar system was formed 4.6 billion years ago), except when used in personifications (Sol Invictus ('Unconquered Sun') was the ancient Roman sun god). References to our planet are written as the earth (lowercase, with article) or Earth (capitalized, no article); if other planets are mentioned as well, the latter form is usually preferable (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars are the four terrestrial planets). It is lowercased in colloquial expressions such as what on earth.
- You say "must be capitalized", but sources mostly don't. Nor with the sun. Dicklyon (talk) 15:28, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- What I'm saying is that a desire to capitalize a word is a desire to convey some information about that word, usually that it's special in some way, but since we do not pronounce capital letters, anyone who uses text-to-speech has no clue that there is information being conveyed. ~TPW 18:00, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- I mean, you could take that argument to say we shouldn't have images, because it might tempt us to leave out information from the text that the visually impaired could have used.
- But anyway, you're mostly right that conveying extra information is not the main point. The main point is to capitalize proper nouns, which are the names of fixed things like the Sun and the Moon, as is correctly done in English. --Trovatore (talk) 18:45, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- No, we have alt-text to convey information about images. As for what's a proper noun, that's the point of this discussion. ~TPW 18:59, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- Alt-text gives some information about the image, but it's never going to get across everything the image imparts to sighted readers. Put another way, by your argument, why use capitals at all? They do convey information that's not available to users of text readers. But look, text was developed for use through the visual sense. It's really wonderful that there are ways for those who can't see to nevertheless use text, and we should make that as easy as reasonably possible, but that's not a reason to avoid thinking about the visual presentation and how it can help the reader who uses it in the ordinary way. --Trovatore (talk) 19:15, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- I think the best way to do that is only to capitalize words that are, per overwhelming consensus, proper nouns. For any argument around the edges like this, with capitalization in some contexts and not in others, it's confusing to visual readers and lost on non-visual readers. I don't see any point to capitalizing such words at all. Whether it's metaphorical or astronomical, the sun is the sun. How does capitalizing the word from time to time improve understanding for anyone, really? ~TPW 16:23, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- Completely agree. If a word needs emphasis, tag it as such, don't capitalize it. MOS says reserve caps for proper names, i.e. terms that are consistently capitalized in independent sources – not terms that are just "sometimes" capitalized in sources, or terms that are capitalized in sources that are promoters of those terms. Using caps sparingly is a great service the reader, and I hadn't thought about how it might also help the screen-reader user, but you are right. Dicklyon (talk) 04:17, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- I think the best way to do that is only to capitalize words that are, per overwhelming consensus, proper nouns. For any argument around the edges like this, with capitalization in some contexts and not in others, it's confusing to visual readers and lost on non-visual readers. I don't see any point to capitalizing such words at all. Whether it's metaphorical or astronomical, the sun is the sun. How does capitalizing the word from time to time improve understanding for anyone, really? ~TPW 16:23, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- Alt-text gives some information about the image, but it's never going to get across everything the image imparts to sighted readers. Put another way, by your argument, why use capitals at all? They do convey information that's not available to users of text readers. But look, text was developed for use through the visual sense. It's really wonderful that there are ways for those who can't see to nevertheless use text, and we should make that as easy as reasonably possible, but that's not a reason to avoid thinking about the visual presentation and how it can help the reader who uses it in the ordinary way. --Trovatore (talk) 19:15, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- No, we have alt-text to convey information about images. As for what's a proper noun, that's the point of this discussion. ~TPW 18:59, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- Yeah, I'd say that such usage must be capitalized, while "they waited for the moon to rise" must be lower-case. So the most simple solutions are (sadly) unavailable. Gawaon (talk) 20:38, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
Comment This really isn't all that hard. The words Sun, Earth, Moon ... a specific celestial body in an astronomical context
. Astronomical sense means in the context of the science of astronomy - broadly construed. Trying to have it extend to more everyday uses could be construed as pettifogging. Cinderella157 (talk) 23:12, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- It isn't hard at all. If a word is a proper name, it is upper-cased. That's a universal rule of the English language. There is no separate category for the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, the Solar System, or the Galactic Center as proper names. Wikipedia status-quo on uppercasing all proper names is clear. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:56, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- But how do you know what a proper name is, as opposed to a descriptor pointing to a specific object (an object that exists just once)? If you want to generally capitalize the Sun, why not equally generally capitalize the Universe, the World, Climate Change, Economics etc., all of which exist just once and could therefore equally well be regarded as proper names? Gawaon (talk) 05:37, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- The Sun? You know it when you see it (look, up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane, nah, it's the Sun). I think editors can figure out when the Sun is used a proper name or is referring to sunlight, etc. That's where examples can come in, but the proper name for the star is Sun and not much else to say about the topic. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:38, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- According to at least one source, "Although it’s a star – and our local star at that – our sun doesn’t have a generally accepted and unique proper name in English. We English speakers always just call it the sun. ~TPW 16:26, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- I'm convinced by the good people at earthsky, why would humanity go to the trouble of actually naming the nearest star that has given us all life. It's not like it's obvious to anyone or deserving of a proper name, just hanging there, not doing anyone a bit of good. But to be serious, I'm extremely proud of Wikipedia for using obvious proper names for the Sun, Moon, Earth, and Solar System even when many sources, such as the one you point out, do not. By the way, may I ask what do you call it when discussing the Sun (I personally seldom discuss it, but there really should be a holiday honoring the thing, maybe call it Sunday or something). Randy Kryn (talk) 22:24, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- According to at least one source, "Although it’s a star – and our local star at that – our sun doesn’t have a generally accepted and unique proper name in English. We English speakers always just call it the sun. ~TPW 16:26, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- The Sun? You know it when you see it (look, up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane, nah, it's the Sun). I think editors can figure out when the Sun is used a proper name or is referring to sunlight, etc. That's where examples can come in, but the proper name for the star is Sun and not much else to say about the topic. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:38, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- But how do you know what a proper name is, as opposed to a descriptor pointing to a specific object (an object that exists just once)? If you want to generally capitalize the Sun, why not equally generally capitalize the Universe, the World, Climate Change, Economics etc., all of which exist just once and could therefore equally well be regarded as proper names? Gawaon (talk) 05:37, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
Just wondering in looking at this, are there times we don't capitalize Jupiter or Saturn? Granted I'm old, but I've used the phrase "jumpin' jupiter" many times. Is Jupiter always lower case in this context? I assumed it would be like cases of lower case sun and earth, but I've never seen it uncapitalized in that phrase. And sure I can see that we would spell it sunrise or sun-rise, but then when NASA talks about Titan and it's lakes and throws up a photo we see a picture of Saturn-rise over Titan? It does get confusing. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:06, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
Yep, this is not difficult at all. If you're referring to the daystar as an astronomical object, it's "the Sun". If you're employing a derived usage, as in "lying in the sun too long" (which really means "lying in the light produced by the Sun", not "going into the Sun and lying down"), then it's "the sun". "The Moon looked red because of dust particles in the Earth's atmosphere", but "The moon hits your eye / Like a big pizza pie" and "archaeologists digging in the peaty Scottish earth for months" (an astronomical body did not come down to Earth and hit someone; Scotland does not have its own separate planet). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 04:34, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
You may be interested in a proposal on whether to capitalize the "Draft" in National Football League Draft, taking place at the village pump. (this is a copy of the duplicated notification posted to the project page Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Football League. Dicklyon (talk) 22:16, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- That would be an RM not a Village pump (policy) decision. But NFL Draft is already at its proper capitalization, so an RM might be a time-sink. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:40, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- Any time some process like RM is failing to come to a consensus, or is subject to WP:FALSECONSENSUS / WP:CONLEVEL problems such as canvassing or nearly no input except from a particular WP:FACTION with a non-neutral interest in the question, the solution is an RfC at a broader venue. WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY, and we have many times resolved questions about an entire class of article titles with RfCs (at VPPOL or otherwise). See also WP:CONSENSUS: it can form anywhere, at any time, by any process. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 16:06, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
Moving what is presently MOS:ACROTITLE into a naming-conventions guideline
– Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.
Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#"Acronyms in page titles" is mis-placed in an MoS page. In short, the material needs to move to a naming-conventions guideline, but which page? — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 15:19, 12 January 2024 (UTC)