Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters/Archive 34

It includes that, but it also includes every other kind of sentence fragment in every field in every kind of infobox. I will try to create some examples for you. ― 

Thanks. How about

WT:MOS and Template talk:Infobox, at the very least? Firefangledfeathers

05:06, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

That's fine. ― 

Talk

05:11, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

TBH, what you & the other fellow are proposing, might be too ambitious & potentially confusing. GoodDay (talk) 05:26, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

GoodDay, if you really cannot understand the concept of title case vs. sentence case, which is a distinction already made in the footnote in this guideline, despite numerous examples and explanation, then you may wish to sit out this RfC. ― 

Talk

05:29, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Are you going to use all those infobox visual examples in the proposed RFC? GoodDay (talk) 05:30, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

@

Talk

05:43, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Best to have visual examples. If you won't supply them, then I will. GoodDay (talk) 05:49, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Talk

02:28, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Thank you again for taking time to do some pre-RFC work. Firefangledfeathers 02:30, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

I appreciate you recommending it. It was the right call. We should wait for GoodDay to agree to the structure and notification before proceeding. GoodDay, you have my word that if this RfC is closed in favor of sentence case, I will not lowercase in any articles until a new consensus on MOS:JOBTITLE can be reached, per the closer's recommendation. This is now a two-part issue. ― 

Talk

02:34, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

The RFC should be linked to politics, as it involves political offices. GoodDay (talk) 06:48, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

• Two things. Does it have to be the specific A,B, and C listed above? It seems lacking without choice C being to allow either depending on the specific WikiProject consensus. Why must it be one or the other? Why can't we be more flexible? Simply use choice D as other. And if many many wikiprojects are involved with using the template, sure they should all be notified but can't it be done by a bot? Agree on some neutral language of what is being proposed and have a bot plop it on every wikiproject talk page that uses the infobox. That way no one gets caught off guard by a change. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:13, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

  I'm fine with adding that option. As for your second point, are you aware that all infobox templates would be affected (you're using singular language)? I'm fine with using a bot to issue notifications if you're able to set that up. ― 

  Talk

  07:55, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

  If all templates will be affected then ALL projects should be notified. That would be a huge important RFC and we don't want to hide things and have folks say later they never knew about it. I'm not a bot person but there are quite a few around here. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:13, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

  Sounds good. ― 

  Talk

  10:02, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

• "allow either depending on the specific WikiProject consensus". No, that's not how it works or has ever worked. The reason we have a centralized style guide is to prevent wikiprojects inventing their own "rules", and the proximal cause of
  WP:CONLEVEL existing was that wikiprojects kept trying to make up their own "rules" and ArbCom repeatedly had to put a stop to it until we codified the result in policy.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢
   😼  19:18, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

  The policy says that individual projects cannot override community consensus. If the community opted to allow flexibility, then that most certainly would be how it works! You seem to be arguing that that option cannot even be considered because it is prohibited by policy, but that policy says no such thing. Or you're begging the question (i.e., assuming the outcome of a community discussion before the discussion has taken place). 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:25D7:83BA:434:F008 (talk) 01:09, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

  Policies and guidelines are the codification of community consensus. They are not controlled by wikiprojects. Have the discussion, yes, but it should not be hosted at a wikiproject page, nor canvass a particular wikiproject.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:46, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

At Talk:Autogas#Hatnote, Widefox and myself are having a discussion about whether a hat note should be

or

To my mind, having that capital letter in gasoline halfway through a sentence (technically, a sentence fragment) is wrong. The

Interesting question. Though I normally go for lowercase when there's an option, I don't feel that way here. What's being distinguished here is not the substance or topic gasoline, but rather the article entitled Gasoline, I think. Dicklyon (talk) 02:29, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

But what is being distinguished here is the topic: the hatnote appears on

Autocas. – Uanfala (talk)

13:26, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

I agree. This example is phrased to refer to a topic, not an article. If we want to refer the reader to the article (the title of which starts with a capital letter) rather than the topic (which doesn't), we should say something like

For the more commonly used fuel for automobiles, see Gasoline.

—⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 17:00, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

The article has a uppercase because of a software restriction. I don't think that's a reason to follow it. Lowercase makes it look "right". MB 06:12, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

The article title has uppercase because we use sentence case for article titles. In what contexts do you suggest we get away from that? Hatnotes generally just use the literal title. Dicklyon (talk) 06:27, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Article titles use sentence case. By the same reasoning, should we have sentences in articles like "internal combustion engines often run on Gasoline" ?  Stepho  talk  08:47, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Certainly not, and nobody has provided any reasoning that would suggest such a thing. Dicklyon (talk) 20:20, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

The example at

WP:HATCONFUSE suggests sentence-case title in hatnotes, e.g. "Not to be confused with Pearl". In this example, "Not to be confused with pearl" woudn't make much sense, while for "Not to be confused with gasoline" it might. But I don't see that as a reason to make up new guidance when the current scheme is working pretty consistently through WP. Dicklyon (talk

) 20:28, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

The pearl example is from the article Perl, so the connection between the two articles is one of similarity between titles, not one of topics. In either case, the hatnote could be reworded to make reference to a topic, and not an article title, and in that case it will naturally use lower case: Not to be confused with the gemstone known as "pearl", or Not to be confused with pearls. – Uanfala (talk) 15:09, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

• Comment article titles use sentence case. Hatnotes are a sentence (fragments) that includes an article title|s. Sentence case should apply to the hatnote as a whole (ie lowecase gasoline but uppercase any words that would normally use upper case in a sentence. Perhaps the issue is that the hatnote is written in all italics (ie, including the leaders eg "For the more commonly used fuel for automobiles"). Perhaps it would be better if only the link|s were in talics as a means of distinguishing the article title, since this is a usual and WP acceptable way of distinguishing text. Conversely, links might be given in normal case since normal case is often used in italicised text to fulfil the function of italics eg: For the more commonly used fuel for automobiles, see gasoline. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:22, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

  Hatnotes are in italics to make it clear they are not part of the article text, so I'd oppose complete de-italicisation. De-italicising every article title would remove the present distinction for titles that are normally rendered in italics, e.g.

• I can't immediately think of any articles with an italic title that would start with a lowercase letter in the middle of a sentence, but it wouldn't surprise me if e.g. some albums are stylised that way. Thryduulf (talk) 11:06, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Reluctantly (and grudgingly) I concede to the consensus. I don't understand it or agree with it but I do bow to it. As Cinderella pointed out, if we are going to treat "Not to be confused with" and "Gasoline" as 2 fundamentally separate things then we need to make them visually distinct. Otherwise we get what looks like a simple sentence but with wrong capitalisation in the middle - hence my misinterpretation. Perhaps we could use a different font for the second half. Or even a colon between them. Anything to show that this is not a single sentence.  Stepho  talk  11:59, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Stepho-wrs, to your: Perhaps we could use a different font for the second half. My example For the more commonly used fuel for automobiles, see gasoline. is saying just that? Thryduulf, you may not have seen that I made two propositions. In the second, I proposed that the links be in plain text and the other in italics. Double italics would then render as plain text. Therefore, your example would render as: This page is about the city. For the 1942 film, see Casablanca (film). For other uses, see Casablanca (disambiguation). This option would seem to satisfy your objection - ie that the hatnote is differentiated from article text? Cinderella157 (talk) 13:00, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

I hadn't picked up on that part of your suggestion, and you're right it does satisfy my desire to see the hatnote continue to be distinguished from article text. On a purely aesthetic level though I really cannot decide whether I like it or not, so I'd ask that it not be implemented before more than at least a generous handful of people have expressed their opinion regarding it. Thryduulf (talk) 14:01, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Cinderella157, sorry, I can't see where you mentioned 2 fonts. I did see your mention of both italic and non-italic and I intended my suggestions to be a follow-on from them but I should have made that more obvious. Combined use of both italic and non-italic is a good start but I was hoping to make it even more obvious that the hatnote is not to be read as a normal sentence. Perhaps:

Not to be confused with: Gasoline

Not to be confused with – Gasoline

More suggestions are welcome.  Stepho  talk  11:21, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

MOS:CAPS. Cinderella157 (talk

) 11:33, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Apologies - 30 years of Windows using "font" instead of "typeface" still leads me wrong, even when I know better. In the above I really meant "typeface". To my eye, using only italic characters followed by regular characters is not very distinct visually. Therefore it still looks like a sentence with a capital wrongly placed in the middle. It's still better than no font change at all but by using an extra symbol like a colon or a dash we make it even more visually distinct.  Stepho  talk  11:05, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

It doesn't need to be "even more visually distinct". The "with" indicates that an item or items is/are following that word. It/they will be blue and in a different typeface, and that's plenty.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:41, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

MOS:GAMECAPS [7] states that trademarked sports and games are capitalized, untrademarked games are usually not, and then that "venue types, sports equipment, game pieces, rules, moves, techniques, jargon, and other terms relating to sports, games, and activities are given in lower case and without special stylization". All the examples of game pieces, moves, etc., are from nontrademarked games. Meanwhile, Good and Featured articles about trademarked games capitalise rules and terms - for instance,

I think the implication is that terms with specific uses in trademarked games should also be capitalised, so victory point, player character, or wound would not be, but Dungeon Master and so on should be. Is this right? If so, how should the rules be updated to clarify this? Maybe something like adding the sentence "Likewise, venue types, sports equipment, game pieces, rules, moves, techniques, jargon, and other terms relating to trademarked sports, games, and activities are capitalized if they are specific to that activity: ability scores in Dungeons and Dragons, card names in Magic: The Gathering, etc. Generic terms such as hit point, victory point, or player character are not capitalized." and specifying that the existing guidance is for non-trademarked games. CohenTheBohemian (talk) 13:06, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

FYI, a related recent discussion can be found at Talk:Pokémon Legends: Arceus#RfC: Should Pokémon types be capitalized in sentences?. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 16:30, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Good catch, thanks. It looks like the inconsistent sources were the key point there. How about this to clarify: "Likewise, venue types, sports equipment, game pieces, rules, moves, techniques, jargon, and other terms relating to trademarked sports, games, and activities are capitalized if they are usually capitalized in the context of this activity: ability scores in Dungeons and Dragons, card names in Magic: The Gathering, etc. However, generic terms such as hit point, victory point, or player character are not capitalized." (changes bolded) CohenTheBohemian (talk) 03:27, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Per the the US Department of Defence's Military Community & Family Policy (MCFP) style guide, Marine, when referring to a servicemember is a proper noun and is capitalized. I cannot find anything to support this when referring to members of the British Royal Marines or

^{${\displaystyle \color {Red}\oplus }$}

There are at least two things wrong with this suggestion. One is that you're mischaracterizing what that style guide says. It does not say that "Marine" is a proper noun. The term "proper noun" is not used at all in that document, as far as I can see. And "marine" is clearly not a proper noun in the linguistic sense. The second is that you are presuming that Wikipedia should do whatever the US DoD says should be done in its own publications. The DoD style guide simply does not apply to Wikipedia, because Wikipedia is not a DoD publication. In fact, that style guide even explicitly says that some of what it says is different from what some other style guides say (e.g. the AP Stylebook). Why should we consider its guidance to be desirable to follow? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 20:48, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

I can see your first point, but nevertheless it says it should be capitalized. To your second point, what you say is what's called a "red herring fallacy". Your argument that WP should not follow the DoD guide is because WP is not a DoD publication. That's true; however, WP is not a publication/subsidiary of APA, MLA, or any other guideline standard organization. Yet, WP follows them in their areas of specialty. It is an accepted practice, WP should follow suit. It's me...Sallicio!^{${\displaystyle \color {Red}\oplus }$} 14:47, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Absolutely not. This is purely a conceit. The armed forces capitalise lots of things that nobody else does. It is not a proper noun, it is not normal English and as BarrelProof says we are not obliged to follow internal style guides. We long ago decided not to capitalise ranks (as we originally used to) unless they were immediately in front of someone's name, another thing that the forces commonly do. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:41, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

I can understand why you would think that, as I have found no reference of British English capitalizing its servicemembers of the Royal Marines. But it is not purely conceit. For one, in American English, it is common practice to capitalize the servicemember. Even in the British-based encyclopedia Britannica, "Marine" as a US servicemember is capitalized. Secondly, it serves linguistic utility. The capitalization differentiates between generally aquatic-based to that of the naval infantry service (which itself is already established as a proper noun) or servicemembers. It's me...Sallicio!^{${\displaystyle \color {Red}\oplus }$} 14:17, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Aside: Encyclopædia Britannica is a now a US-based publication and has been for some time.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:37, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

On the contrary, the British Armed Forces frequently capitalise anything and everything, including Marine (which in the Royal Marines is the private-equivalent rank as well as a generic term for a member of the corps (or the Corps, as they would write it!)). But that too is a conceit. Wikipedia is written in standard English, not service English, whether British or American. It serves no useful purpose whatsoever to capitalise anything except proper names. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:05, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

When I'm editing and see the word marine I imagine how it would be capitalized if instead it was either Army, similar to Marine Corps, or soldier, similar to marine, a person. Like soldier, sailor, airman, etc. Wikipedia style is to use lower case because those are not proper nouns. That differs from many military sources which capitalize all of those. SchreiberBike | ⌨  15:53, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

@Necrothesp: everyone would write the Corps with a capital C because it is in reference to the Royal Marine Corps (a proper noun, just like the Royal Navy, Royal Army or US Navy, etc). @SchreiberBike: no military source capitalizes soldier, sailor, or airman; however, they do capitalize Marine, per the DoD manual of style. The servicemembers of the Marines are the only ones to take on the name of their respective service. It's me...Sallicio!^{${\displaystyle \color {Red}\oplus }$} 20:23, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

"no military source capitalizes soldier"

This took five seconds to Google. SchreiberBike | ⌨  20:53, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

I apologize. I was in a hurry and was rude. What I should have said is that I think you are mistaken and a search of .mil websites shows frequent capitalization of soldier, sailor and airman in the middle of sentences. Try a Google search like "soldier site:.mil" and you will see. Thank you. SchreiberBike | ⌨  21:58, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Actually, Corps of Royal Marines. You see, this is just a variation in style. It is not uncommon to capitalise part of a name when only part of a name is used. But it is unnecessary and generally we don't do it on Wikipedia. So, no, "everyone" wouldn't do it. Once again, it's a bit of a conceit that organisations like and often insist on in their internal style guides because it makes them feel important. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:29, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

If cases vary and it Marines is usual, then capitalise it. The question is a specific one about capitalising Marine, not ‘general’ about other namings. A statement as to what’s ‘general’ in names also leaves one knowing cases vary so winds up ‘maybe’. If there is no WP rationale of distinction between cases, and there are organisation style guides and actual WEIGHT of usage that capitalises Marine, then that argues for capitalisation in the case of Marines. Whether the practice is from conceit or not does not affect whether that is the common usage. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 14:49, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Please review the opening paragraph of the project page which starts with "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization". Wikipedia long ago chose a style which capitalizes less than some sources and especially avoids Capitalization Because Organizations Like to Capitalize Things Which They Think Are Important. There's no reason this should be an exception. Simply, words like marine, nurse, king or third floor day janitor are not proper nouns. SchreiberBike | ⌨  15:39, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Greetings,

During a DYK discussion some doubts were expressed about usage of Caps in the following article. I brought here so DYK discussion can continue to focus at the main DYK issues.

• 1983 Women's March, Lahore

• National Women's Day (Pakistan)

English is not my native language. Whatever is appropriate title writing style is okay for me. Please do guide.

Thanks and warm regards

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 04:04, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

"National Women's Day" seems to be almost always capped in sources. The other not; 1983 women's march, Lahore seems like an appropriate descriptive title. Dicklyon (talk) 00:48, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Wait… Dicklyon is deferring to source usage? Good gods! 😉 Blueboar (talk) 10:29, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

I know, I get shit when I use source stats, and shit when I don't. Such is life WP. Dicklyon (talk) 23:54, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

The manual says: "Finer compass points take a hyphen after the first word, regardless, and never use a space". This may be true for the tertiary points (NNE for example) but is not true for the finest points such as north by east. Should the manual be changed to read:

Tertiary compass points take a hyphen after the first word, regardless, and never use a space: south-southeast or south-south-east, but not south-south east, south southeast. 'Points' have their last elements spaced: north by east or northwest by west.

Another related point was raised back in 2013 but neither discussed nor implemented: "should we mention that the abbreviations for compass points are capitalized?" See Archive 9 Martin of Sheffield (talk) 16:05, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi

WP:COMMONNAME in independent sources. My thoughts. Cinderella157 (talk

) 11:08, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

ENGVAR issue. The Commonwealth Style Guide says: In text, write the points of a compass in lower case. Use hyphens for points such as ‘north-east’. [10] Hawkeye7 (discuss)

11:21, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi Hawkeye7, I did a search for northeast and north-east limiting the region to Australia. Yes, the result favours "north-east" and the split is about 80-20 but results for the hyphenated form also include a significant number of hits for the unhypenated spaced form (ie "north east" - contrary to the Commonwealth Style Guide). I also did this search at bom.gov.au and this search at navy.gov.au. If anybody is following the Commonwealth Government style guide, it would be the government - but they aren't. I think my initial observation was reasonable. Cinderella157 (talk) 13:12, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Though that doesn't address the issue of the tertiary points. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 11:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

I think you mean the quaternary points (north by northwest)? Do we need to address these? If so, just give an example rather than trying to explain it in words. Cinderella157 (talk) 13:17, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Oops, yes. As I said in the first paragraph the existing text is wrong: "Finer compass points take a hyphen after the first word, regardless, and never use a space" when in fact this only applies to the tertiary points and not the quaternary points, hence my suggested edit. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 15:01, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

It seems clear from

Good for you for prechecking the consensus before making a bunch of changes. The Manual of Style is clear that except for proper names these should be lower case, but excessive capitalization is common in games, food, martial arts, dance, and lots of other places. I've corrected many as I've run into them and only occasionally has there been any push back. Thanks for doing the work. SchreiberBike | ⌨  16:55, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Yes, and thanks for getting on this, AjaxSmack. I've spent quite a lot of time lower-casing the same sort of things in such articles, and I know Dicklyon has, too (mainly in sports), but it gets tedious after a while. I downcased a bunch of dance stuff, in which almost every dance-related term was over-capitalized, but after dozens of such articles I had to walk away and do something else.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:40, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

I would say be careful not to over-generalize. Checking a few of the Japanese dances, I found that Yosakoi is pretty much "consistently capitalized" in books and news, but others I checked are not. When they're clearly not meeting that criterion, consensus is clear that they should be lowercase. You could argue that Yosakoi is capped mainly when part of proper names (such as Yosakoi Festival, Yosakoi Dance Project, Shimin Kensho Yosakoi Dance Team, Yosakoi Naruko Dance), and that several English-language Japanese sites use it lowercase ([11], [12]), but you'd likely need an RM discussion to find consensus. I haven't looked at the Indonesian ones. Just make sure you can justify your changes in case someone objects with the claim that "it's a proper name". Dicklyon (talk) 13:20, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Re sports, that was a big area for me in the last 6 months, after I discovered the huge degree of over-capitalization there (mostly in tennis, but it lots of others, too). Except for strong pushback from two editors in tennis who were on the wrong side of consensus, it went smoothly, with no pushback. There's still a lot more to fix; e.g.

NHL Draft are most often seen with lowercase "draft", but the football and hockey fans are strong fans of caps and would make it a too-hard argument to win. Dicklyon (talk

) 13:27, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

second world war), but the dance names (and sports terms) are so widely considered common names that Wikipedia should have the prerogative to lowercase them en masse as a simple style-manual issue. —  AjaxSmack 

14:32, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. Another I've been working on is "The Siege of X" where sources say "The siege of X". A few proper names exist, typically as the "Great Siege of X", but even in articles I've fixed, randoms re-cap it now and then. I'll do more of those soon. Dicklyon (talk) 15:08, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

• This confuses me… Isn’t something like “the Twist” or “the Mashed Potato” the proper name for a specific dance? Blueboar (talk) 15:32, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

  No, not any more than "rock 'n' roll", "chess", "eight-ball", "American football", "jazz" are proper names. (All such things are proper names in the philosophy sense, but not the linguistic sense which the one that has anything to do with capital letters).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:09, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

  Huh… so could you please explain why they are not considered proper names. Blueboar (talk) 22:25, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

  They are no more proper names than rugby league or rugby union. Tony (talk) 13:09, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

  User:Blueboar: I don't think based on either philosophy (see proper name [philosophy]), science or even basic consistency you'll get a clear answer from anyone. And as noted by User:SMcCandlish, the issue here is whether to capitalize, something that relies heavily on tradition (e.g. May is capitalized, but autumn is not). When I made my comments above, I did so after referring to English style manuals rather than by intellectual inquiry. However, your question is germane, so I'll put in my two pennies/cents.

You mentioned "the Twist" or "the Mashed Potato" being a "name for a specific dance", but a better term would be that it is "a name for a type of dance". Use bananas and grammar here to form an analogy: "Pens are for writing." – generic; "I have a pen on my desk." – specific but indefinite; "The pen on my desk doesn't write." – specific and definite. Whether generic or specific or definite or indefinite, pen remains an uncapitalized common noun. I can replace "pen" with a type of pen (e.g.

Tsar Nicholas II

. So in short, being a type of something or being specific does not make it proper.

The intro of Wikipedia's

WP:BIRDCON as an example of an extensive discussion on a single category). —  AjaxSmack 

03:30, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

I can endorse that summary.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:35, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

I certainly endorse the style approach, in any event. There are all manner of caveats to both the empirical and abstract arguments as to which nouns obey which conventions; afterall, if we look to the relationship between the noun and the subject it refers to in any given instance the name "Ted" is about as unique as regards any particular Ted as the common noun "pen" is to any individual pen. But as Ajax correctly and appropriately notes before-hand, it's really not any brightline rule reflecting a rational divide which shapes conventions in this regard, nor is it debate about the same that should be foremost focused upon in our style guidance. Rather (particularly for something like this that defies completely logically adherence to fundamental and expressly consistent rules on the most granular level), we simply map our style guidance to common English usage. While this is a somewhat more nuanced case than some calls (if only because of much historical debate and flux in terms of spelling/stylization conventions on the basis of one

descriptive linguistic argument or another), it's clear that the existing MoS consensus on the over-arching topic here is to follow the general rules of most modern style guides--that is to say, the one Ajax has correctly advanced above. SnowRise ^{let's rap}

05:48, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

DMacks (talk) 21:22, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

@

ʻokinas and probably other things. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 

21:37, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. For the record, later in life I learned that I had been taught some things that were unusual or some level of wrong even at the time they were taught, let alone just an old-fashioned teacher behind the times:) DMacks (talk) 21:38, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Interesting. I was taught the same thing... I'm sure it's old fashioned now. The thing is most style guides say not to begin sentences with a numeral.... spell it out if you have to and if necessary redo the sentence structure to avoid that starting numeral. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:18, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

There is a discussion about whether the hajj should be capitalised that would benefit from more input. Please discuss it here if you care. —  AjaxSmack  19:42, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

In article content, do we use "...the Royal Family" or "...the royal family". GoodDay (talk) 19:01, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

It depends on context. Obvioulsy. --

MIESIANIACAL

19:13, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

We'll let others look into it at the Monarchy of Canada page, then. PS - If the answer is 'uppercase'? Then I'll revert my own edit there. GoodDay (talk) 19:15, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

WE don't need anyone to look into anything. YOU think we need help when only YOU need the explanation of how things work before you'll stop edit-warring, despite everything you need to know being right there not only in all the RSs I provided but also in

MIESIANIACAL

19:20, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Nobody is edit-warring & please stop with the personal attacks. GoodDay (talk) 19:21, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

I didn't say you are edit-warring. I referred to your general pattern of behaviour. Telling you you don't speak for me isn't a personal attack. Stop with the gaslighting. In fact, I've told you twice already to stop interacting with me. Yet, you continue to revert and question my work. It's feeling like it's bordering on harrassment. However, this isn't the place for this. --

MIESIANIACAL

19:24, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Speaking about coverage of the British royal family, I would be very surprised to learn that "royal family" is "consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources". I haven't exhaustively poured through the body of sources, but it looks like BBC commonly capitalizes but The Guardian and The New York Times do not. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:16, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

I just want to get this right. As, I'm also considering making corrections to the Monarchy of the United Kingdom page & the rest of the Commonwealth realm monarchy pages. GoodDay (talk) 19:19, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

The British Royal Family is one thing. But, GoodDay has started this dispute (#15 (?) with me in the last two weeks) over capitalization of "the Royal Family" and "the Canadian Royal Family" in

MIESIANIACAL

19:23, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

The place to look is not government sources, which are presumably not independent of the subject, but all reliably, secondary, independent sources. How are news organizations or academic researchers using the term? Any books on the subject? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:41, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Well, those sources do show what's official. The Government of Canada also provides its own style guide that the government considers the guide for everyone else. (Though, it's not mandatory to follow it.) Then the Canadian Press has a collection of style guides for all journalists. Of course, the term "Royal Family" has probably been used in other souces tens of thousands of times. How can we possibly ascertain whether capitalized or not-capitalized has been used most?

Doesn't

MIESIANIACAL

20:53, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

• We just ran into this roadblock at Tennis Project. We were told that unless a word or phrase is always capitalized in sources (or as near to always as no matter) then wikipedia does not capitalize. We were told this over and over and had to change 10s of thousands of article titles and prose because of it. If it's 70/30 in sources in favor of capitalizing, then wikipedia guidelines tell us not to capitalize. Many were not happy with this reasoning but the community of ivoters spoke loud and clear. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:44, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm hoping this can be cleared up. One doesn't want to make changes across several pages, only to find out that those changes were an error. GoodDay (talk) 21:34, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Actually, after discussion, we found that only Fyunck was not happy about downcasing "men's singles" and "women's doubles" and such. And his 70/30 characterization is also bullshit. Dicklyon (talk) 02:39, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Back to back lies here. I was not the only one but far more wanted downcasing. And per your own words in those discussions, whether 70/30 or even 80/20 we would need to use lower case here. I'm not sure how your bullshit helps this dialog, but I was actually trying to move it along to lowercase since we had some precedent. Move along and hound someone else. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:54, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

You both agree, use "...the royal family". GoodDay (talk) 12:07, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Note: I haven't lower-cased 'royal family' throughout the entire Canadian monarchy page (missed some) & won't complete the changes or revert the changes already made, until it's decided 'here', which is the correct version to use. GoodDay (talk) 21:06, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

For what it's worth, rough n-grams show lowercasing is favored and probably the most familiar for English readers. The casing was almost equal for a couple of decades but then lowercase seems to have prevailed. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:09, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

That's interesting. However, it doesn't take context into account. Sometimes "royal family" is correct because one is using the term generically. In other instances, "Royal Famliy" is correct because one is writing about a specific royal family. It's the same as "queen" versus "Queen". --

MIESIANIACAL

16:12, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

The results are similar for "British royal family". "Canadian royal family" does not show up enough in the corpus. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:23, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Also interesting. But, what's the implied message here? That

MIESIANIACAL

19:55, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

I can't see how you read

MOS:INSTITUTIONS as supporting capitalization of royal family in any context. Dicklyon (talk

) 02:39, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

I see it applies because a country's royal family is an institution. The Government of Canada has a list that defines who's in it (and implies who's not); as does the UK (a bit down the page, under "Members of the Royal Family") and Sweden (though they call it the Royal House). They have their own internal heirarchies, customs, and even

MIESIANIACAL

07:08, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

It says to cap the "Full name of institutions". It doesn't say "Royal Family" alone is the full name of an institution; I'd say it's not. Dicklyon (talk) 18:05, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Well, it doesn't say anything specifically about the full names of tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of institutions. We can see from numerous sources that "the Royal Family" is the full name of the institution; at least in some countries. And, again, what about the Famous Five, the Group of Seven, the Bloomsbury Group, etc? Their names aren't "Group of Seven", "Famous Five", or "Bloomsbury Group". The definite article "the" is required, just like "the Royal Family". --

MIESIANIACAL

23:05, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't think "

Genovian royal family" or "British royal family" is the full name of any institution. It just seems like a collective term for a group of people (and in most contexts, it seems like a somewhat vaguely defined group or a group that has a somewhat different definition when used by different people – note that the British royal family article says "There is no strict legal or formal definition of who is or is not a member" in the lead section). And while The Jackson 5 is a proper name, the Jackson family is not. And I think we should not be looking at government-published style guides for guidance on the question. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk

) 23:34, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

It does make sense to follow what's official in this situation. Unfortunately, it seems like the Government of Canada's style guide isn't available online (and possibly has to be bought). I've only been able to point to what's on Canadian government websites, assuming they follow the government's own guide for Canada.ca content, which states, "capitalize the main words of [...] institution names" and the government sites all capitalize "the Royal Family". [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] --

MIESIANIACAL

00:34, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia policies and guidelines do not defer to governments to make decisions about whether to capitalize things. It doesn't really matter what the websites of some government do, and it doesn't really matter what the style guides of some government say. Governments generally tend to generally overcapitalize things that relate to their government – perhaps as a way of trying to assert authority or high importance. (See, for example, the above discussion of "Marine" versus "marine" for members of the

U.S. Marine Corps.) —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk

) 16:08, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I missed your "not" in your prior comment.

Nonetheless, I think I've found a resolution that accepts both MOS and the official way of doing things off Wikipedia. For Canada, anyway. --

MIESIANIACAL

16:11, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Use lower case. DrKay (talk) 18:00, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

In these last roughly two years. The project has moved towards lower casing in page content, section headings, sub-sections headings, etc. I didn't like it, but had to get used to & accept it. After all, those MoS decisions are the result of a collective consensus. GoodDay (talk) 19:59, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

It's been the guideline, and a significant part of what some of us do, for over 15 years. It's just that there are lots of little corners of Wikipedia still where overcapitalization has escaped notice. This might be one of those. Dicklyon (talk) 02:39, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Dicklyon, you're more familiar with this general topic then I am. Would an RFC be required for clarification, on whether or not to use "the royal family" or "the Royal Family"? Or is MOS:CAPS crystal clear on this matter. GoodDay (talk) 07:16, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

If you want to fix widespread over-capitalization, and get pushback on that, then yes an RFC is a good way to find out where the consensus is. Dicklyon (talk) 18:05, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

If there's already a consensus for "lower-casing", concerning the handling of royal families? Then I would assume such an RFC wouldn't be required. GoodDay (talk) 18:09, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

An RM is a type of RfC, and it may be helpful to refer to the RM discussion at Talk:British royal family/Archive 2#Requested move 14 October 2016, which resulted in renaming the "British Royal Family" article to British royal family". —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 23:48, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

But we're not disputing page titles. So far, it appears as though roughly 5 out of 6 editors (not counting myself) are saying use "the royal family". I'll give this discussion another 24 hrs & if this trend continues? I'll complete the changes at the Canadian monarchy page & move onto the other monarchy pages. If there's still objections 'here', by then? Then a RFC may well be required, to determine whether we 'upper case' or 'lower case' in the body of monarchy-related pages. I suspect that at the moment, there's inconsistency on this, throughout many monarchy-related pages. GoodDay (talk) 23:58, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

BarrelProof is right. That RM discussion, which is a specialized type of RFC, has pretty well established that we use lowercase for "royal family", unless someone starts an RFC or RM to go back the other way. Such issues are most often resolved in RM discussions, since they're easier (and usually quicker) than more general RFCs. Dicklyon (talk) 03:57, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

So... if I begin to make corrections in the monarchy-related pages, to lower-casing? My corrections should not be reverted, as they were at the Monarchy of Canada page. GoodDay (talk) 04:07, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

In my opinion, yes. Especially, they should not be reverted by someone who is aware of this discussion here. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 15:56, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Surely, if we have reached a clearly recorded consensus not to capitalize something in the title of an article on the subject, we should not be capitalizing it in running prose. I can't imagine any argument that would say otherwise. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 15:56, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

A question

Is a footnote enough, for showing how a country's gov't describes its royal family (example: uppercase)? Or does it have to be written out in the content, even if it 'might' contradict the (lowercase) style, being used throughout the page. GoodDay (talk) 16:16, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Should your question not be, "should we reference a government's official way of writing 'royal family'"? Since you deleted the sourced material (and left the sources).

The Canadian government's official way of capitlizing royal family won't contradict WP:MOS any less in a footnote. It doesn't even matter that the Canadian government's way of doing things contradicts WP:MOS, since the Canadian government's way of doing things is very clearly explained as the Canadian government's way of doing things: "The Canadian royal family (French: famille royale canadienne capitalized by the federal government as the Royal Family[283][284][285]) is a group of people...". It's just another sourced fact like all the others. --

MIESIANIACAL

16:45, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

I think going with^[a] (a note) would be best, rather then writing it out in the content. GoodDay (talk) 16:51, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, but it's unclear why you think that's best. --

MIESIANIACAL

17:16, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Because it avoids having it written out in the content, which (written out in content) 'potentially' contradicts the style used throughout the rest of the page. Anyways, I'll abide by what is decided 'here', concerning the topic. GoodDay (talk) 17:26, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

It does contradict the style used throughout the rest of the page. It won't stop contradicting the style used throughout the rest of the page if it's in a footnote.

The question is: what does it matter that it contradicts the style used throughout the rest of the page? You'd have a point if the fact was presented without context; ie if it were written as, "The Canadian royal family (French: famille royale canadienne; capitalized as the Royal Family[283][284][285]) is a group of people..." But, that's not the way the content is written. The fact is given with the clear explanation that it's the federal goverment that capitalizes the term. It could even be written as, "The Canadian royal family (French: famille royale canadienne; capitalized by the Government of Canada as the Royal Family[283][284][285]) is a group of people..." I'm certain readers can differentiate between the Canadian government and Wikipedia. --

MIESIANIACAL

18:19, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

It shouldn't be mentioned at all since it is unimportant to know about the subject and not notable. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 20:36, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

I's not the most important thing, but it is worth mentioning in the all of nine words it uses. Do you see the french translation as unimportant and not notable? --

MIESIANIACAL

20:41, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Since you asked the question, I see no reason to provide the French translation of the phrase "Canadian royal family" in the article about the Monarchy of Canada. The purpose of the article is not to teach French to the readers. Although French is an official language of Canada, this is the English Wikipedia. Only a couple of phrase translations are provided in the article (I see only "Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada" and "House of Windsor"), and I see no reason to translate that one. For example, it is not a formal title or the name of an official institution – it is merely a phrase that describes a group of people for which "There is no legal definition of who is or is not a member of the group", as the article says. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:15, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

You forgot to delete the sources. --

MIESIANIACAL

21:07, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

I merely removed the phrase that was added in a previous edit. I can check whether some of the neighbouring citations seem unnecessary or not, but that may take more time than I have available at the moment. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:15, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

BarrelProof. I've no concerns about it being mentioned. It's how it's being mentioned that raises questions for me. GoodDay (talk) 20:57, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

It is

WP:Original research, so it should not be discussed in the article. The article is about the Monarchy of Canada, not about orthography. People reading the article should be informed about the monarchy, not about whether the Canadian government uses capital letters in the phrase "royal family" or not. To the readers, that is completely unimportant and off-topic. And as far as I know, no independent reliable sources discuss the question of whether the Canadian government uses capital letters in "royal family" or not, so any self-generated discussion about it is original research. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk

) 17:45, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

May we capitalise within the infoboxes? Example - "Awarded by the Monarch of Canada", rather then "Awarded by the monarch of Canada"? GoodDay (talk) 05:48, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

That is not the (585th) dispute. Please see

MIESIANIACAL

17:07, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

I thank you for the re-direct to the infobox discussion. GoodDay (talk) 17:09, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

No, nothing special about infobox that would suggest ignoring

MOS:CAPS. Dicklyon (talk

) 04:14, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Disagree. But am content with lower-casing, now that the emblems were re-located. GoodDay (talk) 04:36, 11 August 2022 (UTC)