Talk:Cuban Missile Crisis/Archive 3

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 15:30, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

• [1] – the one you linked, showing that overall, capitalization was in a minority but has slowly increased over time, up to about 60% in 2008.
• [2] – shows that comparing in a context that more likely to be in a sentence (following by 'in' or 'was'), which eliminates many headings, title, and citations to other titles, the lowercase is still in the majority through 2008. The trend toward more capitalization in the 2004–2008 range likely has some small influence from wikipedia (which had caps during 2003–2012), and more recent data would have more influence, which is why I generally don't trust any such stats from very recent years (and we can't get them from n-grams anyway).
• [3] – shows that of words following Cuban Missile Crisis, 'of' and 'and' are most likely (especially with the capitalization), and finish up slightly more capitalized in 2008. Clicking through to book search, you can see why:

• "Cuban Missile Crisis of" finds frequent citation to book titles The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962: A Case in National Security Crisis Management, and Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 - Studies in the Employment of Air Power, and chapter titles such as "The Rhetoric of Deflection: John F Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962."
• "Cuban Missile Crisis and" finds frequent citations to book titles The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Threat of Nuclear War: Lessons from History and Soviet-American Crisis Management in the Cuban Missile Crisis and the October War, and chapters "The Cuban Missile Crisis and Intelligence Performance" and articles such as "October Missiles and November Elections: The Cuban Missile Crisis and American Politics, 1962"

Since such titles and citations to them are normally set in title case, they provide no indication that the author or editor thought that such words as Rhetoric or Case or Air Power or Missile Crisis were parts of proper names. But they do add to the overall count that the n-gram stats show you. If you want better stats on what proportion of books treat Cuban Missile Crisis as a proper name, you have to go through book hits looking for how they use it in a sentence. This will often knock out half or more the general capitalized hit stats.

And keep in mind that even if caps were in the majority in sources (which they are clearly not in this case), that's far short of our criterion of "consistently capitalized" in reliable sources, which is what it takes to indicate that caps are necessary as opposed to optional. Dicklyon (talk) 20:35, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't believe ngrams should be used in these discussions. They barely contain any of all books out there. Eric - Contact me please. I prefer conversations started on my talk page if the subject is changed 21:18, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, it's a sample of barely 5.2 million books. Maybe you can show us results from a few that they missed? Dicklyon (talk) 22:51, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

5.2 million books actually isn't reallly a lot of titles considering how much books are actually out there... >.> Eric - Contact me please. I prefer conversations started on my talk page if the subject is changed 01:10, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

So tell us about a book or two that you have access to that Google books does not. So far, I think I found all the ones I looked for from the reference list, but of course there's selection bias there; so what you got to go by? If you don't have millions handy, maybe just a thousand; or a hundred; or ten; or one. Do you have even one single book that mentions the Cuban missile crisis that Google books hasn't scanned and counted? Please share. Dicklyon (talk) 01:38, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Well no because I don't collect books about the Cuban Missile Crisis. But I do not that your claim about Cuban Missiles Crisis not being considered a proper noun is what you call TOTALLY FALSE because:

• 1 History.com uses capitalization
• 2 Atomic Archive uses capitalization
• 3 JFK Presidential Library and Museum uses capitalization
• 4 US Department of State uses capitalization
• 5 US-History.com uses capitalization
• 6 encyclopedia.com uses capitalization
• 7 archives.gov uses capitalization
• 8 this amazing paper from Hawaii Pacific uses capitalization

etc. Clearly, some people have other opinions than you. Eric - Contact me please. I prefer conversations started on my talk page if the subject is changed 02:22, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I agree it is not hard to find web pages and books that use caps. In recent books, nearly half do. Dicklyon (talk) 04:07, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

More recent book data

Several editors have extrapolated the n-gram data, which only goes through 2008, to claim that surely by now uppercase usage must be more common. We can test that hypothesis by selecting recent books and looking inside them (in sentences) to see how they treat the Cuban missile crisis. I used a Google book search constrained to 2009 and later, and only books with previews available, so I'd have a good chance of looking inside.

This query: [4]; and subsequent pages. For each book, you need to look inside, find usage in sentence, if any, and what case. A few never use the phrase in a sentence, and a few have it with mixed case, but most are not that hard to interpret. Here are the first 25 hits I got, annotated by year and upper or lower case (u.c. or l.c.):

• 2014 l.c.

• 2012 u.c.

• 2013 l.c.

• 2013 mostly u.c.

• 2013 u.c.

• 2014 u.c.

• 2010 u.c.

• 2013 l.c.

• 2012 can't tell

• 2011 l.c.

• 2013 l.c.

• 2011 mixed

• 2012 mixed; mostly u.c.

• 2013 l.c.

• 2013 u.c.

• 2011 u.c.

• 2011 l.c.

• 2015 l.c.

• 2012 l.c.

• 2013 u.c.

• 2012 l.c.

• 2012 l.c.

• 2013 l.c.

• 2012 l.c.

• 2013 l.c.

Conclusion: however you want to count, uppercase is still not dominant; in fact it's in a significant minority behind lowercase. So the extrapolated trend conjectures are FALSE. Dicklyon (talk) 02:53, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Gee, that's odd, somewhere else on here you said "Googlebooks was flawed" [as a tool to decide this], no? You can't have it both ways. The way I work is called

WP:COMMONSENSE and that's in massively short supply in Wikipedia discussions. That this is controversial is by now without doubt at all, and that is one very good reason for you MOSites to stop enforcing "your" ("Wikipedia"'s) agenda towards these titles. And why Googlebooks and not GoogleNews? Seems to me that six of one half dozen of the other is not a valid reason to conduct such lengthy controversial RMs when there seems to be little work being done by any of the name-changers on the articles themselves.Skookum1 (talk

) 03:46, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Why not quote what I actually said instead of making stuff up? In any case, the stats are just stats; yes, they refute the extrapolation hypothesis that some rely on, but we still have to use common sense and decide. In my book, it's common sense to follow the

MOS:CAPS guidelines. Dicklyon (talk

) 04:31, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

I've looked at two of your examples, the fifth from the bottom is in its tenth edition (old book), the fourth from the bottom is a page of references not the book itself (references, one lowercase listed, one uppercase, not lc as you list it). Will keep looking. Randy Kryn 4:46 14 January, 2015 (UTC)

I didn't modify the URLs to take you to the pages where seeing the use in a sentence was easiest, like on that fourth from the bottom. Typically by clicking the "view all" link you can find the pages to look at. I agree, the list of references is not where you need to be looking. Dicklyon (talk) 04:49, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Where you need to be looking is

WP:COMMONSENSE and note edit comment about numerical analysis=machine thinking and note, again, that this whole agenda is clearly controversial and has serious and repeated opposition that is not idle or ill-founded; as such, you fielding all these endless rigid MOS claims and interpretations of some is an ongoing disruption. Do you ever edit any of the articles you're changing titles on and defying anybody who says 'boo' against you with endless qualifications based on your own interpretations of googlestats and other mumbo-jumbo?Skookum1 (talk

) 05:06, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

And by throwing more mixed-results sections into the talk, which assures that the patience of editors has to be quite practiced in order to get past all the talk and to see that the consensus is actually going heavily in favor of capitalization, also ignores the template at the top of the discussion, which instructs editors to only use only use this one section, a section which can be summed up by its words "The choice of article titles should put the interests of readers before those of editors, and those of a general audience before those of specialists." Capitalization of the Cuban Missile Crisis meets all the criteria called for in the template discussion, and the many discerning editors who've voted and commented below realize this. Randy Kryn 5:23 14 January, 2015 (UTC)

(Dicklyon wouldn't allow me to add to my comment, so here is my full comment, and please change your listings accordingly from "lc" to "uc" on the 3rd from the bottom): I've now looked at six of your "lc" examples, the bottom one is the 7th edition, the 3rd one from the bottom is a link to two upper-case references (not lc, as you say), the 5th from the bottom is in its tenth edition (old book), the seventh from the bottom is in its 43rd edition (very old book, I know a textbook editor, they usually just recycle the old material if it's not about a current event), the 12th from the bottom is the 16th edition (very old book), the 4th from the bottom is a page of references not the book itself (references, one lowercase listed, one uppercase, not lc as you list it), etc. etc. I surmise from that that if I keep looking lots of the lc examples are from old editions which editors don't bother to update to current common usage. Mud in the water seen for what it is. Randy Kryn 6:28 14 January, 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, it was rude to keep modifying what I had already responded to. You need to learn how to look inside the book, as I said before. If by the "3rd from the bottom" you mean this book, then please click where it says "view all" to find the pages that have Cuban missile crisis in the text; e.g. this page or this page or this page. It's lower case in all 3 places where it appears in the text. I mentioned before that I did not modify the URLs of the search hits to go the best pages to see the use in sentences. Dicklyon (talk) 07:06, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I meant the 1998 book which you list as 2013 (the 3rd from the bottom). It's copyrighted 1998, if you look a the copyright page. As the 7th from the bottom is copyrighted 1970. As I said, textbook editors don't always or often revise line-by-line in new editions (a good friend of mine is a textbook editor). And your 3rd from the top is copyrighted 1998 (not 2013), your 8th from the top is 1999 (not 2013). Your 10th from the top is

Dicklyon, I've shown your above listing to be both inaccurate and actually listed wrong on occasion. The dates of the books you list, the ones described in my post above and probably others, are simply not the dates of the books. My question: why haven't you struck out and changed the incorrect items? I've done that when I'm wrong, and I find it easy to admit mistakes if I make them. Why do you leave incorrect data so prominently displayed, and the only way people will find out that it's incorrect is to read the entire section - a section which you added in a very prominent spot in this questions, and then aren't correcting, or even answering my last post which contains some legit criticisms. Randy Kryn 15:10 17 January, 2015 (UTC)

History of article capitalization

• The topic was capitalized in the lead without discussion here in late 2003.
• The article was moved to lowercase by consensus in Requested Move discussion in 2012, where it was pointed out the even Britannica, usually a big capitalizer, uses Cuban missile crisis for their article. Dicklyon (talk) 20:35, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Britannica has 9 edits over the life of the article, and most of those edits list references which capitalize, including the Library of Congress and the BBC. Not a very convincing point in favor of lower-case. Is anyone a member there? Maybe we can ask why it is lower-cased as long as you brought the point up. (your link doesn't work for me) Randy Kryn 23:02 8 January, 2015 (UTC)
    • I'm going to assume that you are just looking at the ref titles again. You need to open them and read them to see whether they treat it as a proper name, by whether they capitalize it in the text. Keep in mind that out title style is sentence case, so to capitalize we need to have evidence of proper name status; and we avoid caps where unnecessary, which means that if treating it as a proper name is optional, we don't. And your link didn't work for me. But there are thousands of other books accessible online, including many of the refs, so keep looking. Dicklyon (talk) 23:53, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
      • Sentence case doesn't mean altering proper nouns it means like "List of characters in Star Wars" etc. Eric - Contact me please. I prefer conversations started on my talk page if the subject is changed 12:39, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

You're missing the point Eric... consider the following:

1) "The key event in Kennedy's first term was the Cuban Missile Crisis"

2) "The key event in Kennedy's first term was the Cuban missile crisis".

Both of these statements are in sentence case. The difference is that the first presents the the event as a Proper Noun. The second does not. What Dicklyon is saying is that we need to look at how the name of an event is presented in the running text of the sources (in sentences like the ones above). When doing a search for source usage, we need to discount the titles of the sources (books, magazine articles, etc), because those are written usually written in Title Case as a default. We need to look at usage in sentence case text. Blueboar (talk) 13:39, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

No, I mean sentence form as "List of characters in Star Wars" over "List of Characters in Star Wars" Eric - Contact me please. I prefer conversations started on my talk page if the subject is changed 20:18, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. I had not realized that Eric was so confused as to not understand the basic question here. I thought he just didn't like WP style, as opposed to not understanding it. Sorry. Dicklyon (talk) 18:53, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

The nine edits in the lifetime of the Britannica page mention websites and one video, not books and magazine articles. So Dicklyon assumed wrong. Randy Kryn 13:54 9 January, 2015 (UTC)

Title are titles; or do you see a relevant difference between website and video titles compared to book and article titles? Dicklyon (talk) 18:51, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I am considering the sentence form and not just titles. I've seen just as much compelling evidence for usage of capitals when used in a sentence. My textbook from Pearson (today I had looked) uses capitalization in the sentences as well. Eric - Contact me please. I prefer conversations started on my talk page if the subject is changed 20:17, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

So tell what textbook you have, and if it's not in Google book search, we can add it as a new data point. Dicklyon (talk) 22:34, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

America: Pathways to the Present Eric - Contact me please. I prefer conversations started on my talk page if the subject is changed 23:01, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Editions up through 2005 appear to be included in the Google Books index already, though it's a "no preview" book, so they won't show us the text inside the 2005 version. The 1995 edition used lowercase "Cuban missile crisis" and I'll take your word for it that the 2005 uses upper case, so it is already reflected in the stats. If you have an even newer edition, it is probably not in Google books. Dicklyon (talk) 23:12, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Interestingly, in the search snippet that I can see in this search, that 2005 edition has "Civil rights movement" in the index without caps. Maybe they have some kind of rationale for which things to capitalize, different from yours and Randy's. I'll pick up a cheap used copy and see what I can learn. Dicklyon (talk) 23:24, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

It is the 2007 edition not the 2005. Eric - Contact me please. I prefer conversations started on my talk page if the subject is changed 23:58, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Eric, that's a hefty book; I picked both the 2005 and 2007 editions via mail for cheap, to see what Google counted in the 2005, and what they missed (probably) in the 2007. Both have 3 uppercase "Cuban Missile Crisis" in sentences that I can find, and 3 more in section heading, figure heading, and index. So the 2005 book counted for 6 of the uppercase counted in the n-grams already, and the 2007 book probably wasn't counted because they hadn't scanned it yet (as far as we can tell from it not appearing in Google books). Note that if they had chosen to use lowercase in sentence, they probably would still have counted for several uppercase from the headings (maybe not the index); this is typical of the sort of bias and over-counting of caps in Google Books n-grams. By the way, they use lowercase for "civil rights movement" and "Montgomery bus boycott"; these also appear capitalized in headings so get counted for that, too. The fact that they are selective about what to capitalize does give some weight to their choice of uppercase for Cuban Missile Crisis. Nice find. Now if you'll consider what they do with civil rights movement... Dicklyon (talk) 02:15, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Survey and discussion

• Oppose per the data, in light of
  MOS:CAPS. Dicklyon (talk
  ) 20:35, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Please voters, look at my nomination above, it covers much more than the ngrams which show capitalization is the strong trend in recent years. I mention the references on the page itself, which also go for capitalization, and search engine results, which go very strongly in favor of capitalization (The JFK Library, U.S. State Department and other government entities, and so many other organizations use capitalization that it's kind of strange to even see it lower-case). Dicklyon, maybe on this one you can do, as I say on your talk page, a debating tactic and take the other side, which can be proven easily, and then argue from that position why it should be either capitalized or not capitalized. How about doing it that way, and assisting, with your talent for digging up data, the 'Oppose' side as well (I'm not good at it, but you are teaching me some of the ways editors can swing support to one side or another). On this one, capitalization seems the way to go. Randy Kryn 22:50 8 January, 2015 (UTC)
    • Randy, I hate to have to do this, but I'm going to repeat my all-caps bold TOTALLY FALSE in reaction to your claim that "the references on the page itself ... also go for capitalization", like the last time you tried to use reference titles to support the idea that sources treat a term as a proper name. You have obviously not opened them and looked at whether or not they treat Cuban missile crisis as a proper name, by how they capitalize it in the text. A few do, but even more don't. I've only worked through refs 1-10 so far, and found only two of them use capitalized "Cuban Missile Crisis" in the text (and only three lower case if I don't triple count refs 8-10, and three don't use it in the text at all). Nobody disagrees that most publishers use a different title style than we do, and capitalize it in titles. That's not the issue here. The issue is whether sources treat it as a proper, and MOST do not. Dicklyon (talk) 23:40, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
      • I'm not counting papers and references from the early 1960s (several in the first ten are from that era), those obviously would not capitalize. It's only after time has passed that an event such as the Cuban Missile Crisis earns its historical place in the world's consciousness. Again, common sense. And I did say in my opening nomination that there are still major magazines which don't capitalize the name. But overall, on average for the later years, don't the majority fall into the capitalization category? Seemed so to me, but I encourage everyone who wants to fairly vote on this to make their own investigation (but I would personally not count or consider references from, say, 1962 or the mid-'60s as indicative of the accepted common name of today). Randy Kryn 1:37 9 January, 2015 (UTC)
        • So can you tell us which references you looked at capitalize it? In the first 10 refs, the ones that use lowercase are #4, 1989, #6 2005, and #8-10, 1999. The two that use upper case are [http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Sets-Missiles-Account-Missile-Crisis/dp/1288236174 #1, 2012] and [http://www.amazon.com/Berlin-1961-Kennedy-Khrushchev-Dangerous/dp/0425245942 #3, 2011]. The term "Cuban missile crisis" does not appear in the text of refs #2, #5, and #7, though other terms such as "the missile crisis" and "the Caribbean crisis" do. Dicklyon (talk) 04:11, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
          • Look at the
            Lesson plans and External links. Capitalization abounds. Does Primary sources mean something other than Primary sources? Randy Kryn
            6:52 9 January, 2015 (UTC)
            • That's exactly where I was looking (when I responded to your other post about that under SmokeyJoe's support comment below). Where you say "capitalization abounds", are you again only looking at titles? Because capitalization in sentences is the only way to see whether they treat it as a proper name or not. Did you look at any? Find any upper case? I'm sure there are some, and I'm pretty sure I can find more lowercase among them, but I'm not going to do your work for you. If you claim there's evidence there, lay it out. I've laid out a ton already, which remains unrefuted by your vague claims. Dicklyon (talk) 23:32, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
              • (I wrote this on Dicklyon's talk page just now, and it seems to fit here too): Í shouldn't be even answering this, given your attitude towards people who oppose you (are you ever going to apologize?). On this particular question, the Cuban Missile Crisis, there is the fact that such major organizations and institutions as the John F. Kennedy Library, the United States State Department, the Library of Congress, and many others weigh in with hundreds of others (found in search engines) in favor of capitalization. Surely capitalization can be shown to be a common name. A proper noun. At what point do you accept that it has become a proper and common name? You see the forest, I see the trees. The tallest and strongest trees in the forest of names - represented by the institutions named above and their equivalents - see that event with enough cohesiveness to think of it as a proper noun. There is no lack of data to back them up on that. Lots of people think of it as a proper noun, maybe a good majority. To many of them seeing it in lower-case looks strange, it just doesn't feel right. To me it doesn't feel right enough that I opened the discussion on the talk page. There aren't many of those you've nominated, that I've seen anyway, that make me feel this way. A few, and I've voted and commented on those, but you probably have moved hundreds that I wouldn't go out of my way to make a fuss. On this one, the Cuban Missile Crisis (just look at how it looks the other way: Cuban missile crisis, what a weak name in comparison. Man, that was a Crisis with a capital C. We almost lost civilization and the lives of millions of people on that one. It certainly isn't a lower-case wannabe by any means). So, that's how it made me feel, and then I noticed that there is plenty of data to show that it's seen by lots of others as a proper name, and so my nomination. That's why I point out places to poke around for voters, I don't think we have to be in a prosecuting attorney mode and lay out the entire case, pointing the way for competent readers (most good wikipedians will look into the question themselves once enough links have been pointed to, they click and explore themselves, on both sides of a question such as this. I've said a couple of times, such good magazines such as The Atlantic and Foreign Policy use lower-case, and the New York Times uses it in a majority of its mentions but not in all, so is inconsistent). So yes, the lower-case adherents can make a good case that lower-case is one of the ways the name is treated. There is plenty of evidence on both sides of this one (don't you think so?), but I, along with other editors, think the John F. Kennedy Library, Library of Congress, National Archives, and the U.S. State Department have it right. I'll post this on the talk page as well, just wanted to explain how I look at the question. Randy Kryn 2:15 11 January, 2015 (UTC)
                • Randy, I don't want to play your game of naming sources and arguing over which are more prestigious; plenty of good sources use lowercase, too (like the Britannica as previously pointed out); many of the docs at State and at LOC use lowercase, too. And I have no objection to those organizations that see it as and treat it as a proper name -- of course they "have it right" as you say. But WP favors lowercase when there's a choice, and in all the cases we're discussing, especially the Cuban missile crisis, lowercase is at least as common in sources as uppercase is, so WP style says we use lower. This does not diminish the stature of the event, nor of the organizations whose styles capitalize them. Dicklyon (talk) 04:02, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support The 2003 version (although its visual look was different) uses correct capitalization in headings and in its use of the term Cuban missile crisis. I have actually seen this lower cased in a textbook before, but that textbook was hated by my teachers plus the other textbook I had capitalized it so... And since when is Google Books/n books/or whatever it is called the almighty dictator of correctness? This statistic resource is most definitely limited. Eric - Contact me please. I prefer conversations started on my talk page if the subject is changed 21:14, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

  Google Ngram Viewer is actually a pretty fantastic tool. It doesn't prove anything. But it is drawn from a huge body of reliable sources, and is about the best starting point we have for seeing how sources present a name or phrase. Dohn joe (talk) 21:40, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

  Eric, if you're suggesting that "Soviet Strategy" as used in the 2003 heading was "correct capitalization in headings", perhaps you are still ignorant of WP style, as in

  MOS:HEADCAPS. I'm not sure if that was in effect in 2003, but I'm pretty sure that the random mix of caps in the article at that time was not consistent with any style, in spite of whatever may have been the intentions of the guy who changed the case of the topic. Dicklyon (talk

  ) 23:09, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Meh I didn't see that bit but yeah that was wrong. I am familiar with our guidelines and what not. I know where exceptions are, however, and you ignore it.. Eric - Contact me please. I prefer conversations started on my talk page if the subject is changed 01:08, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. Once the headings and titles are removed from the search the results are not convincing, and it was a close call anyway, one that would not have presented us with an obvious decision. Binksternet (talk) 21:17, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
• Weak oppose. Looking back at the 2012 RM discussion, I'm actually pretty shocked that it was moved. Seems like a clear no consensus - or if anything, consensus to keep lowercase. That being said, I remain convinced that either upper- or lowercase is acceptable. Dicklyon's ngrams show that there is a strong trend towards uppercasing that has likely continued beyond 2008. Sources of today are probably majority uppercasers for this historical event. It's close enough, though, that the current title is acceptable. I would (and did!) !vote the same if the tables were turned. Dohn joe (talk) 21:40, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
  • I know! The 2012 vote seems very much like a no consensus, so closing it down on the lower-case side confused me as well. And the rest of your post seems to be in favor of capitalization as well, except for the word 'oppose'. You actually make a good case for this nomination to succeed. Randy Kryn 22:54 8 January, 2015 (UTC)

    It could really go either way. I don't think there's enough evidence to push it one way or the other. Dohn joe (talk) 01:36, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

    • I think anyone who is "convinced that either upper- or lowercase is acceptable" is acknowledging that capitalization is not "necessary". Hence per
      MOS:CAPS WP style is to use lower case. Dicklyon (talk
      ) 23:09, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

      "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization" is a pretty meaningless statement in itself. Capitalization is necessary when we decide it is. More helpful is the third sentence of MOSCAPS, which gives actual guidance on when to capitalize: "Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is a proper name; words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in sources are treated as proper names and capitalized in Wikipedia." Of course, "consistently capitalized" is also capable of differing interpretations. It can mean nearly 100%, or it can mean a healthy majority. Dohn joe (talk) 01:36, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

      Right, somewhere between healthy majority and 100% is the threshold; we leave that open. But in this case it's not even a majority, so the question of what's the threshold need not come up. Dicklyon (talk) 04:26, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

      Well, it wasn't quite a majority in 2008. The clear trend through 2008 would suggest that now, seven years later, it likely is a majority - and possibly even a healthy majority - using uppercase. Just not quite certain enough of one for me to !support the RM. I wish Ngrams would bring its results current! Dohn joe (talk) 15:12, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

      • That doesn't make common sense, if the upper case is used more often, why not upper case it? Why the insistence to keep it in lower case, even against the facts? And can you or someone do a ping on the people who voted in 2012 alerting them of this vote (I don't know how that's done, do we just leave a note on their talk pages?). Thanks. Randy Kryn 23:14 8 January, 2015 (UTC)
        • Against what facts? Fewer than half of sources treat it as a proper name, according to everyting I can see. And the style guideline and title policy are what you seem to be arguing with now. Take it up at the
          WP:NCCAPS. Dicklyon (talk
          ) 23:44, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
          • They aren't fucking policies get it through your damn mind! Eric - Contact me please. I prefer conversations started on my talk page if the subject is changed 01:08, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
            • Got it. I agree. Even
              WP:LOWERCASE, which is on a policy page, is not a fucking policy. Dicklyon (talk
              ) 01:22, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
              • It's policy, but the policy is related to capitalizing proper names, and people who see these things as proper names - Cuban Missile Crisis seems to me to be a proper name - adhere to that policy. As for fucking policy, please see WP:KAMASUTRA. Randy Kryn 1:42 9 January, 2015 (UTC)
• Support. It would seem that as the event has changed from current affairs to historic, the descriptive name has transitioned to a proper name. If there were another Cuban missile crisis tomorrow, it would surely not be simply called "a Cuban missile crisis" because there was one great well known Cuban Missile Crisis. The ngram trend and numbers are enough to overcome the recentism of the change. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:16, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. Seeing the graph shows no sign of drop in the capitalization since 1962 and hasn't been used in the lower case form in most cases since 1986 (actually has dropped) it seems appropriate that capital letters should be used. Per WP:Dicklyonpolicies Eric - Contact me please. I prefer conversations started on my talk page if the subject is changed 02:26, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Off topic, but what a nice username. A namesake,

Smokey Joe Wood, was one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history, and one of the nicest guys to communicate with back when I was collecting baseball autographs. OK, I'll keep this off topic post short, but yeah, cool. Randy Kryn

2:38 9 January, 2015 (UTC)

Smokey, take a look at the data section for more detailed n-gram data and analysis. This "transition" has not happened, and we are not in the business of forecasting trends. We follow, not lead, based on evidence in sources. To some extent, we may have inadvertantly led to capitalizing it during 2003-2012, but still usage in text, as far as we can tell, is majority lowercase. Even when/if it becomes majority uppercase, that is far from meeting the intended style criterion of "consistently capitalized in sources". Again, please review the data carefully, in the data section above, as the broad n-gram view that you and Randy both linked is not telling the whole story. If you're still in doubt, sample some recent books and you'll see. Dicklyon (talk) 05:04, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

You are a strange duck. The ngram I linked was from you, from the other page, it was your own link. You are now criticizing myself and Smokey (yes, Smokey dared to vote against you, and here you are pushing at his vote) for a link that you yourself provided. "The usage in text, as far as the evidence shows is..." majority upper-case. Majority upper-case in search engines, in common use, in the references on the page (if you discount the early references from the '60s and '70s), and in your own ngram. The Cuban Missile Crisis is the proper name of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Oh, but so sorry, it's not universal, it's not 'consistent', so you trot out Wikipedia policies which aren't policies, try to muddy the water with shifting of the goal posts, and loading up this nomination with a data section that few will read but some will think is impressive from the mere size of it. "...we may have inadvertently led to capitalizing it from 2003-2012, but still usage in text, as far as we can tell, is majority lowercase". No, it is not, and the proper name of the page from 2003 to 2012, followed by a very questionable decision in 2012 when obviously consensus for the move had not been reached, have brought us to a point where Wikipedia is out of step with the proper and common name. Google the term. Bing the term. Give a call to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, to the U.S. Department of State, to the National Archives, to the Library of Congress where the name is capitalized. Look at the

Lesson plans and External links. It is now, and will likely be known in the future, as the Cuban Missile Crisis, eventually by almost everyone except for Wikipedia. That's the obvious trend, even with the burden of the Wikipedia mistake in 2012, and it's becoming more obvious since then. When - and how much evidence is needed for it to happen - will Wikipedia correct that mistake? This time? Next? I know that once the decision was made to lower-case it the burden of proof falls on the people attempting to reverse that decision, and that's sure not easy to do, unless the very few people who will know that this vote is taking place actually take the time to research it. EDIT: Actually, the editor who posted this on the page where page move requests are made may have done it wrong, as the template doesn't seem to link to an entry. Can you, or someone, fix it? Thanks. Randy Kryn

5:32 9 January, 2015 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with the n-gram link. I thanked you for posting it, and discussed it in the data section above. But there's more to the story there, too, and Smokey sounds like he missed it, since he re-posted the too-general counts link only. The data are clear: good sources use lowercase more than uppercase, at least through 2008 where we have data. And guidelines are clear, such that even if uppercase is the majority, we would stick with lowercase until and unless capitalization becomes at least sort of close to "consistent" in good sources. Dicklyon (talk) 23:41, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support it appears to have become a proper noun instead of a descriptive phrase for this event, per evidence already given here, in the aboves. -- 65.94.40.137 (talk) 05:58, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support – A clear example of a proper name. We are not referring to a "Cuban missile crisis", but the specific "Cuban Missile Crisis". It is quite simple, per Smokeyjoe. The 2012 move seems as if it was off. RGloucester — ☎ 07:26, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Nobody thinks there is any other Cuban missile crisis. So the majority lowercase usage in sources clearly refers to the one that is the topic of this article. That is evidence that we should choose lowercase, per
    MOS:CAPS, not the opposite as you seem to be claiming. Dicklyon (talk
    ) 19:20, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

    @

    WP:TITLEFORMAT. It states "Use lowercase, except for proper names". -- PBS (talk

    ) 13:49, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

    • Actually the template above used to designate this type of request links to this section and says to use that section for discussion, which seems to give a request such as this much more leeway. And the question on these type of titles boils down to 'is it a proper name', which could mean that even if everyone doesn't use it as a proper name, if enough major institutions and sources use it as such, then it can be considered one. At least that's how I read it, and one way it can be read. Randy Kryn 14:29 10 January, 2015 (UTC)

• Support - looking at the evidence presented (both in terms of quantity of source usage, and quality of sources), the trend seems clear... this is one of those cases where the name of the event has morphed into being a proper name. Twenty years ago it wasn't ... but today it is. All the evidence points to the fact that modern sources consider it a proper name. Blueboar (talk) 13:52, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
  • ??? What evidence shows that? Dicklyon (talk) 19:20, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support as per UCRN GregKaye 17:48, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
  • There's nothing in
    WP:UCRN about capitalization, and also no evidence anywhere that uppercase is more common than lower in sources, so your rationale is not making sense here. Dicklyon (talk
    ) 18:04, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support as a proper noun Red Slash 19:00, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support. It's a proper noun, as this chart shows [5].
  -- Calidum
  02:40, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

If you'll look at the Data section above, where that "chart" was analyzed among others, you'll understand that what you're saying is not supported by the evidence. Dicklyon (talk) 03:09, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Dicklyon, you have to remember that the ngrams you'll downgrading, all of which show the trend to capitalization picking up and growing - and the trend to lower-case falling accordingly - end at 2008, at least six years ago. I know you cite 'crystal ball', but I think that assuming that the trends that we see in all the ngrams on this question have likely continued (added to all the other pro-capitalization evidence) merits consideration. And can you or someone please fix the template at the top of this discussion, which seems to not be taking. Thanks. That said, yay Buckeyes. Randy Kryn 6:27 13 January, 2015 (UTC)

There is absolutely nothing in evidence about such a trend continuing, and the only plausible reason to think it might would be if more modern books are influenced by the capitalization they see on Wikipedia, which we've had uppercase since 2003. And I'm not "downgrading" anything. The evidence is what it is; it just needs to be interpreted carefully. Dicklyon (talk) 18:21, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

No ngrams evidence since 2008, except all the lines were going up for uppercase and going down for lowercase. It was uppercase on Wikipedia from 2003 to 2012 (not 'since' 2003), and the closing of the lowercase vote in 2012 seems, as pointed out above by others, quite possibly an incorrect verdict. By the way, has anyone alerted the voters from 2012 that a new vote is occurring? I haven't, and don't know if anyone else has. That's normal in these situations, yes? (EDIT: I dropped a note off at the former voters' talk page, with a hopefully neutral wording.) Randy Kryn 18:38 13 January, 2015 (UTC)

• Support. Again we seem to have lost sight of the grammatical purpose of capitalisation in English. The scope of this article is a particular incident, rather than an overview of all incidents that could be described by the phrase Cuban missile crisis. This is exactly what capitalisation flags in English. That is also the distinction being made by grammarians when they talk of proper nouns, but use of this technical term just seems to confuse people. It's really quite simple. Andrewa (talk) 19:18, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support to comport with other singular events with well established names like Vietnam War and Battle of the Bulge. Powers ^T 19:41, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support per Randy Kryn and LtPowers and countless other examples I've already mentioned on the
  October crisis look just damned odd.Skookum1 (talk
  ) 02:06, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
• Support as it is a proper noun and title of an event. As a school teacher might tell you: it names a specific item/event. 2) Further, it will begin with a capital letter no matter where it is placed in a sentence. Kierzek (talk) 13:58, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose per Dicklyon's cogent survey and argument. By MOSCAPS, for this title to be capped, it would need to be shown that usage is not inconsistent. Clearly it is inconsistent, with a large proportion uncapped. Our house style, then, prevails. And Randy Kryn, it's not a "vote". Tony (talk) 11:31, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

• Disagree concerning Dicklyon's survey and argument's cogency. Instead, I see detail and complexity beyond what ngram data should be used for. "It is inconsistent, with a large proportion uncapped" - yes. Do we default to uncapped? Or should we editorially decide whether the term is (is now) a
  proper name or not. On this last question, I find Powers !vote persuasive, but would be very interested to read further comment on whether the term is or is not a proper name for a singular event. --SmokeyJoe (talk
  ) 22:39, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
  • If I may, I believe Dicklyon and Tony are of the opinion that when any significant number of sources fail to treat an item as a proper noun, then the question is unsettled and we should default to sentence case. There's nothing wrong with that view as far as it goes (we do need a metric by which we can decide, when usage is split), but in many cases (such as this one), it runs up against what most people see as standard convention. There has to be a reason why so many editors think of items like the Cuban Missile Crisis as proper nouns. Powers ^T 01:29, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

• Support.
  Moscow Trials, Cuban Missile Crisis... all these things could be argued to be simply a location or demonym followed by a description of an event, but they have also assumed the status of proper nouns to describe the incident concerned. To the extent that nobody ever refers to it as a "missile crisis that occurred in Cuba", it is always "Cuban Missile Crisis".  — Amakuru (talk
  ) 10:44, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose—The evidence here seems pretty clear. When the bulk of sources write something in lc, we can conclude that it is at least correct to write the phrase in lc – I'm not saying uc isn't also a correct alternative – and therefore our style is to use lc. This business of analyzing trends up until 2008 and projecting since then seems totally whacky and inappropriate. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:36, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

  Hi. What evidence? What bulk of sources are lc? Please read the entire discussion, I don't know where you are getting the "bulk of source" data which hasn't gone unchallenged and shown to be flawed. As for style, the entire discussion should be, as the template says, on one particular section of the titling page which, as a guideline and not a policy, doesn't overly weigh lower-casing something just because some people used to, but goes more to the common sense approaches. Bottom line, is the Cuban Missile Crisis a proper noun for a single event? Seems to be accepted as such by a great many people, books, and major American institutions. Randy Kryn 15:20 17 January, 2015 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.