Talk:Girls Like You

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. consensus appears to be that the title shouldn't be moved. While the MOS is indeed clear on this as

• Oppose, most of the sources use the current capitalization. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 03:30, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. I think this is a case like Star Trek Into Darkness, where our general rules on not capitalizing 4-word prepositions should be ignored. Rreagan007 (talk) 16:22, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Indeed the lyrics make clear that like is used as a preposition here, so it should be lowercased as per Wikipedia's style guide (
  A Girl like Me (Rihanna album), Someone like Me, Moves like Jagger. Darkday (talk) 23:01, 15 June 2018 (UTC)*[reply
  ]
• Oppose* On YouTube, iTunes etc. all three letters are capitalized and should be the same with the title of the article. --Babar Suhail (talk) 23:33, 16 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - AFAIK, four letter prepositions should be capitalized. --Jax 0677 (talk) 12:14, 19 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment. The MOS is clear on this point, and most of the opposes here don't have much grounding, but it hasn't been clear for years whether the MOS really represents community consensus on this word in particular. For example, there's the extensive evidence of Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters/Archive 21. I'm not sure it's worth changing one of these without discussing the hundreds of other capitalized instances of "Like" in article titles, and I'm pretty sure discussing the hundreds together wouldn't lead to a consensus to change the titles either. Dekimasuよ! 18:14, 19 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. OK this looks like a lost cause but the MOS is quite clear on this. We should either follow it or change it. Andrewa (talk) 19:04, 19 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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

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: not moved. There seems to be a consensus to follow the MOS here from both sides. Originally, the RM was made under the assumption that capital "Like" violated the MOS, but that was refuted by further examination of the MOS to discover an exception where "Like" is permitted to be capitalized if independent sources commonly do so. Since capital "Like" doesn't seem to be in violation of the MOS, no move seems to be necessary. (closed by non-admin page mover) — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 05:42, 23 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• That there was a previous RM at all indicates that this is not an uncontroversial request, per
  WP:PCM, and it will need a new RM consensus to move. DanCherek (talk) 19:20, 16 July 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  • @
    WP:IAR, otherwise I'm effectively getting a consensus to apply the Manual of Style, which is non-sensical. >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 19:26, 16 July 2022 (UTC)[reply
    ]
    • As per
      WP:PCM, "there has been any past debate about the best title for the page", so this should go to a full RM, even if we agree with the reasoning. -Kj cheetham (talk) 20:33, 16 July 2022 (UTC)[reply
      ]
    • WP:RMTR is certainly not the right way to overturn the outcome of an RM discussion, even if you think you are right and other people are wrong. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 01:01, 17 July 2022 (UTC)[reply
      ]

      Thanks for moving the convo over :) >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 13:31, 17 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Extraordinary Writ (talk) 04:56, 17 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support move. I had a look at the lyrics, and it's clear that like is used as a preposition (not a verb) in the title. Deor (talk) 15:46, 17 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - I do not think this song is about girls liking Adam Levine (maybe they should make a different one about that).--NØ 17:09, 17 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support: Move per
  WP:CONSISTENT with innumerable prior cases. This is a standard "like as a preposition" case.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:58, 17 July 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Support: We should follow our own
  MOS:CT style guidance. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 19:03, 17 July 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Support per our guidelines and the evidence that like is used as a preposition here. Dicklyon (talk) 20:19, 17 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per
  MOS:CT. Having a style guide only makes sense when it is applied consistently. Darkday (talk) 22:57, 17 July 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Oppose per sources overwhelmingly uppercasing (has anyone lowercased?), this being listed as a major all-time song, per the 2018 RM and its finely written close, and I have to at least register an 'oppose' when I saw this RM so as not to include myself in Wikipedia's ridiculousness in lowercasing obvious commonly uppercased titles. Randy Kryn (talk) 19:32, 18 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  "so as not to include myself in Wikipedia's ridiculousness" – The closer should be clear that Randy Kryn is making an argument against the guideline existing, not against the guideline applying in this case. The editor is well aware that if he wants to change the guideline, e.g. to capitalize prepositions of four letters or more instead of five, that the place to propose that is the guideline talk page or

  WP:VPPRO.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:44, 18 July 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  SMcCandlish, no, I'm fine with the guideline, and it seems to work well in most cases. Yet every guideline begins with the statement about common sense exceptions, and I've always contended that this guideline introduction language actually dictates that some common sense exceptions should exist. This is one. Uppercase should prevail, per no sources existing which lowercase the name of the song, and SnowFire's detailed reasoning below. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:41, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose per Randy Kryn, the previous RM, and the OVERWHELMING majority of sources. The band is allowed to title their song however they like and not be second-guessed, and they clearly capitalize "Like", and this is not a stylization. See the famous
  WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. MOS:CT is not the end of the debate, it is one factor among many, and previous RMs have born out that WP:COMMONNAME has a say as well. A check of Google news shows 100% of the first 20 hits using capital L "Like" in running text, excluding titles. This is not a piece of running text, but rather a name, so deference should be given to the sources and the band. SnowFire (talk) 20:56, 18 July 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  Nope. It's well-sourced that the title of Star Trek Into Darkness is a play on words, forming both a sentence and a subtitle simultaneously; this is the reason why it remains "Into" on WP. Nothing like that is going on here. What we have here is exactly the same case as "Do It like a Dude" (which that band stylized in ALL-CAPS, another style we also did not parrot). See also "Moves like Jagger" (by the very same band as the case under consideration here!), and many other cases.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:24, 18 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Poor rational tbh - just because media and news outlets use a certain type of capitalisation doesn't mean we follow suit. Wikipedia is encyclopaedic and formal in tone. Our style manual says prepositions 4 letters or under should not be capitalised. The word like is given as an example. In this context Like is used as a preposition rather than a verb. We can't have local consensuses that are not based on our policies guidance or Manual of Style. The previous RM was procedurally incorrect. None of the reasons given for opposing the move are based on anything to do with maintaining our rules and styles for formal writing. Consensus has never been obtained by counting votes. Someone saying "opposed" based on their personal opinion or preference is worthless versus a "support" vote based on clear rule, guidance, procedure or MOS. We're not a news article or news source, who quite often stray from capitalisation rules. >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 21:46, 18 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, the obvious fault in this "populist" reasoning is that most of the sources for something like this are entertainment news publications, 99% of which follow a four-letter-rule style guide. It doesn't mean anything other than that there are different style guides (and we have our own). This is completely different from a COMMONNAME question, like whether the article should be titled "Girls like You" or "Some Girls like You" because both conflicting titles were on different releases of the same song (to make up an example). COMMONNAME has nothing to do with style questions, or MoS simply would not exist (or at least would never apply to title questions; but of course we apply it dozens of times per day to title questions).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:32, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  All well and good, but do you have a reputable source that lowercases? Wikipedia is supposed to be source based, but the five-letter rule often ignores that. Ignoring one rule in favor of another usually works well when Wikipedia-tradition extends into overturning the abundance of sources, but in this case, as in several others, if not one reputable source can be found lowercasing the word in question then applying common sense seems reasonable. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:50, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: Isn't this exactly the situation addressed by the adopted text at
  ownership or authoritativeness to their interpretations of it), so I'm unsure why I'm the one to mention it while everyone else hasn't. Adumbrativus (talk) 06:02, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Oppose per User:Adumbrativus. That pretty much seals the deal here, as it is clear that there are almost no sources ad all which lowercase the "like". The MOS has always been a useful guideline for the majority of cases, but it is also clear that it shouldn't make up styling not found in reliable sources, and the proposition plus the support votes here haven't addressed this point at all, which was the crux of the last RM.  — Amakuru (talk) 06:26, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Well that leads us to a ludacris situation where two songs by the same artist Girls Like You and Moves like Jagger use the same preposition in the same way one is capitalised, the other isn't. If we go by that logic, then if an artist releases a song styled all in capitals or all in lowercase and all RS refer to it in that way then we should ignore the MOS. The whole point of MOS is to ensure clarity and formality of a encyclopedic content style. Otherwise we could eNd Up wItH aRtIcLe NaMeS lIkE tHiS just because the media/RS says so. >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 07:52, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Please look at the sources for both songs. You'll find that Moves like Jagger has mixed sources, upper and lowercasing "like", and it appears, without counting, that most or a large percentage are lowercased. Now look at the sources for Girls Like You. apples And Oranges. Randy Kryn (talk) 09:39, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  How is it apples and organs when we're literally talking about the same thing - prepositions. An encyclopaedic format and style is about consistency. >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 12:30, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  lol (which I only write if I'm lol) at "apples and organs". When no outside Wikipedia examples exist for a certain named song then where is the expected encyclopedic accuracy? If the sources were mixed, such as in "Moves like Jagger", I wouldn't have posted on this RM. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:14, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Then by your logic, if a topic was named eNd Up wItH aRtIcLe NaMeS lIkE tHiS, and covered by reliable sources we should abandon all sense, logic and formality and simply go with what sources say? That's not what Wikipedia is nor is it encyclopaedic, professional or formal. We have the MOS for consistency. Local consensus should not outweight MOS otherwise anyone can get together any band of mates and strong arm a project or topic into accepting a style or point of view not represented anywhere else. The MOS is also designed to prevent this daft situation we're now in where there's two works, both containing the word like, both using the word as a preposition in the same way but both using different stylisations (one caps, one not). That's what it is at the end of the day, stylisation. Its the same reason we don't display Ty Dolla Sign as Ty Dolla $ign or Ty$, even though that's how his name is often listed in charts, media and on cover arts. >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 19:46, 19 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Can you point to an example of a title where the official name of the subject is an aRtIcLe NaMe lIkE tHiS, and where sources have in fact used the title that way, causing it to be used as the title in Wikipedia? I think the entire point of the policy is that sources overwhelmingly tend to ignore such stying and identify such things with Article Name Like This styling, which is what we therefore end up using, as we should. BD2412 T 19:50, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  See now we're entering the territory of original research. We're finding sources that display the song capitalising the L in like to demonstrate this is the common title. I don't believe that is how common title was intended to be portrayed or used. The decision is to capitalise L is a stylistic choice - that's the very point I am trying to make. IMO (and my experience of editing for years now), the MOS is unequivocal and presents the style of wikipedia. Pages beginning WP: are guidance and policies. Its clear we are interpreting that differently ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 20:48, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose per
  WP:COMMONAME. BD2412 T 01:00, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  @

  WP:COMMONNAME it also says The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles. Given that their previous release doesn't capitalise like, and the MOS specifically says "like" if as a preposition should not be capitalised, you've just broken your own argument? >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 08:51, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  No, it does not. You are reading the section on title consistency, not on common names. However,

  WP:TITLECON specifically provides that common names override consistency. This, in fact, confirms my argument. BD2412 T 19:46, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

  Commoname applies to the words and title of the page, it does not preclude or override MOS. Common name is a guidance piece/policy, TITLECAPS is a a part of MOS. One is about content, the other is about how said content is displayed and presented. >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 20:46, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose Per
  WP:CONSISTENT but it is axiomatic that English is inherently inconsistent - ie there are often near as many exceptions to a rule as there is conformity. Live with it or change the rule. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:05, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]
• Oppose. The vast majority of sources capitalize Like here and
  MOS:5LETTER explicitly says to "Apply our five-letter rule (above) for prepositions except when a significant majority of current, reliable sources that are independent of the subject consistently capitalize, in the title of a specific work, a word that is frequently not a preposition, as in 'Like' and 'Past'." Did anyone pushing this "per the five-letter rule" actually bother to read it, or do they just like wasting everyone's time? -- Vaulter 14:45, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  WP:AGF folks... AGF! I started the discussion on the basis of trying to maintain some sense of consistency with their prior release "Moves like Jagger" but clearly people feel strongly about it and more sources than not capitalise it, so it looks like it will close as a pretty-evenly split (maintain status quo) if not in favour of opposition. >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 17:45, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]