Talk:(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. (closed by non-admin page mover) BilledMammal (talk) 15:35, 28 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@

prepositions tends to always be controversial since editors tend to have different opinions on whether or not "on" or whatever related word is a preposition, which puts its preferred capitalization ("On" vs. "on") into question, so moving this to full discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 21:40, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply

]

Okay. --Moscow Connection (talk) 21:59, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Just a little bit of history.
  1. The article was created in 2004 at "
  (Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay". [4]
  5. In May 2008, it was moved to "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay". [5]
  I don't see anything controversial here. "On" is a preposition and shouldn't be capitalized. --Moscow Connection (talk) 21:59, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• @Johnleemk: Pinging the article's creator. --Moscow Connection (talk) 22:12, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• A note on why the first "the" is capitalized:

Subtitles: Not everything in parentheses (round brackets) is a subtitle. For titles with subtitles or parenthetical phrases, capitalize the first word of each element, even if it would not normally be capitalized, if the element is either:

• A clause that can stand alone as a title and is sometimes used that way, as a short name: "(Now and Then There's) A Fool Such as I"

— Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Titles of works

--Moscow Connection (talk) 22:25, 8 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. The phrase "on the dock" appears to be a pretty standard prepositional phrase to me, which means that "on" is being used as a preposition here. So by our normal formatting rules of not capitalizing short prepositions, I don't think we should be capitalizing "on" here. If someone has a different grammatical analysis, I'm open to hearing it. Rreagan007 (talk) 05:07, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. I see both forms equally represented in reliable sources, so there's no compelling reason to change style from one to the other. Stax used the capital O on their 7-inch 45 rpm single, which helps me decide that moving this thing isn't worth the trouble. Binksternet (talk) 07:20, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • What do you mean by "Stax"? Which version are you referring to? What I see is "(Sittin' On) THE DOCK OF THE BAY" ([6], [7]), are you proposing to move this article to "(Sittin' On) THE DOCK OF THE BAY"? --Moscow Connection (talk) 08:03, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have also found a French release listing the song as "
    (Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay" and "(Sitting On) THE DOCK OF THE BAY" [9]. Which do you prefer and why is it better than the proposed capitalization? --Moscow Connection (talk) 08:10, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • In short, if we don't capitalize the preposition "on" and the article "the", we shoudn't capitalize the preposition "on". Currently the capitalization is just inconsistent and weird. --Moscow Connection (talk) 08:32, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm not worried about the capitalization being "weird"—the parentheses already make the whole title weird. My position is supported by several respected publishers such as Billboard magazine in this book about chart hits. I am certainly aware of other sources using sentence case, but I'm seeing a fairly equal split in the literature, which means there's no particular "right" way, and no strong motive to change what we have here. Binksternet (talk) 16:15, 10 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • The New Rolling Stone Album Guide supports "(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay". --Moscow Connection (talk) 09:27, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • TIME-LIFE Rock & Roll supports "(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay". --Moscow Connection (talk) 09:31, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • Popular Music: An Annotated Index of American Popular Songs · Volume 6 supports "(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay". --Moscow Connection (talk) 09:39, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • The Story Behind the Song supports "(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay" and "(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay". --Moscow Connection (talk) 09:39, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • Winners, the Blue Ribbon Encyclopedia of Awards supports "(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay". --Moscow Connection (talk) 09:45, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • Musicians & Composers of the 20th Century supports "(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay". --Moscow Connection (talk) 09:48, 11 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]
        • WP:BLUDGEON. Binksternet (talk) 02:20, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply
          ]
          • Come on, I did not attempt to "bludgeon" anything. You said your position is supported by Billboard, and I demonstrated that my position is supported by Rolling Stone, Time, and some encyclopedias. --Moscow Connection (talk) 16 March 2023 (UTC)
          • Billboard is inconsistent. I have found the title written "(Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay" here and both "(Sittin' on) the Dock of the Bay" and "Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay" (no parentheses) here in one and the same article. --Moscow Connection (talk) 16 March 2023 (UTC)
          • I'm puzzled by your position. I still think it is a purely technical move. Cause the current title is both non-compliant to the Wikipedia style guidelines and inconsistent (having one preposition capitalized and another non-capitalized). --Moscow Connection (talk) 07:26, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

            Out of the 41 editions in this section of the Talk page (this is the 42nd), 31 are yours, @Moscow Connection. Yes, I think this is bludgeoning and deters other users from taking part in the discussion. Gorpik (talk) 09:43, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

            1. You counted minor edits such as typo fixing. 2. I did some research and I posted the results bit by bit. It is not forbidden. P.S. Btw, it is your comment that doesn't add to the discussion (let alone that it is misleading.). --Moscow Connection (talk) 10:02, 16 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

            "Bludgeoning is where someone attempts to force their point of view by the sheer volume of comments." Making lots of distinct comments is discouraged. Try to compile all your thoughts and research into single, concise replies in discussions.

            Put simply, people typically don't like inequality in discussion. If someone offers 1 sentence in their comment, they don't want to be replied to with 10 sentences. If they offer 1 comment, they don't want to get 6 separate comments in reply (from the same person). You can reply to someone offering 1 source with multiple sources, but just use judgement - 3 opposing sources is probably fine, 50 opposing sources is definitely

            WP:BLUDGEONING. The goal is to build consensus by getting others on board, not to be "right." PhotogenicScientist (talk) 03:01, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply

            ]

            I put more effort into my research than Binksternet, so I wrote more than him. :-)
            I fully understand that someone who makes a passing comment based solely on the infobox picture doesn't want to be bombarded with replies, but I had dug through the whole Internet and posted what I had found. (My first reply was based on several labels I had found on Discogs.) --Moscow Connection (talk) 22:19, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Move to
  Dock of the Bay. No reason to disambiguate. See here for this target edit history, and I note that it falsely claims that the term is ambiguous. Hopefully this will lead to stability. Andrewa (talk) 23:51, 15 March 2023 (UTC)[reply
  ]

"(Sittin' on)" isn't being used as a disambiguator here. It's part of the song title. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:33, 18 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is an unnecessary

concise title for the article on the song. And there is need for stability, see this history of the proposed target. Andrewa (talk) 10:47, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply

]

• Oppose per Binksternet, and especially the uppercased title of Otis Redding's recording, official youtube video, and the covers. Uppercase "On" seems by far the common and most familiar name, and its musical historical significance comes with the uppercase. Randy Kryn (talk) 01:28, 20 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  its musical historical significance comes with the uppercase What do you mean? I've seen "on" and "On" used pretty interchangeably - I'm pretty sure either version of the title appropriately represents the same song PhotogenicScientist (talk) 02:47, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Because the historical significance of this song is carried by the Otis Redding version, which was uppercased. The next most important version of the song is Michael Bolton's, which was uppercased. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:03, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  There are lots of sources that discuss Otis Redding's version, and both "on" and "On" are used among them with no strong preference, based on the sources linked here. Do you have a source to provide showing the Otis Redding version has it uppercased? PhotogenicScientist (talk) 03:13, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Nope, all original research by looking at the releases of Redding's recordings of the song. A few even truncate the title, such as suggested above by Andrewa, to "Dock of the Bay". But overall the uppercase would be most familiar to readers who know the original recordings. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:27, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Sure, but in most all those pictures, every single letter of the title is capitalized - quite a different format than we use for article titles. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 13:22, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• You know what I mean, when the cases are mixed "On" is uppercased. Uppercase "On" is the prefered casing for Redding's recordings. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:38, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Author preference would definitely matter here, but I'm just not seeing that there is a preference (either from Otis or Stax). Most of their releases just capitalize everything. I see this one from Otis, where "on" "of" and "the" are all capitalized, a format not seen in most all other sources. And I see this one where only "on" is capitalized, but it's from a German compilation album - not exactly more definitive than the number of publications that use "on" and "On" interchangeably. PhotogenicScientist (talk) 14:04, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Support primarily per Rreagan007, about "on the Dock" being a prepositional phrase (and "sit on" not being a
  phrasal verb); there's also no strong preference among sources, from what I could tell, so I'd default to policy (adding to above: source that uses "On": [10] and source that use both "On" and "on": [11]) — Preceding unsigned comment added by PhotogenicScientist (talk • contribs) 02:45, 22 March 2023 (UTC)[reply
  ]