Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters

Add new items at top of list; move to Concluded when decided, and summarize the conclusion. Comment at them if interested. Please keep this section at the top of the page.

(newest on top) Move requests:

• Talk:PBA Best Player of the Conference Award#Requested move 9 July 2024 – Lowercase award on these dozen titles?
• Talk:Anyone but You#Requested move 30 June 2024 – Capitalize "but"?
• Talk:Three Musketeers (game)#Requested move 10 June 2024 – Is it capped as a trademark, or should be lowercase musketeers?
• Talk:Genocide of Indigenous peoples#Requested move 25 May 2024 – Lowercase "indigenous" in a generic usage?
  • Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (ethnicities and tribes)#Indigenous – continued discussion

Other discussions:

• Talk:Julian (emperor) – should "emperor" be capped when referring to a specific person?
• Talk:War of 1812#Capitalisation of "house" and "senate" – as stand alone terms in prose
• Talk:War on terror#Capitalisation of "global war on terrorism" in prose
• Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Music#THEBAND disambiguators – what to do about "The" in parenthetical disambiguators?
• Talk:F1NN5TER#Capitalization – Should the online persona be called "F1NN5TER", "F1nn5ter" or "Finnster"?
• Talk:Union Jack#Case consistency – Union Flag, or Union flag?
• Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Capitalisation of "oblast" when used as the name of a Ukrainian administrative division – May affect other administrative divisions (e.g. raion) and other nations for which such terms are used
• Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Capitalization in tables – Column by column, or entire table?
• Talk:2020 MLS Cup Playoffs#Rounds are proper names? – Lowercase some words in headings?
• Talk:Ballistic Missile Early Warning System#Article title – Use sentence case?

Pretty stale but not "concluded":

• Talk:Upstate New York#Other plausible capitalization issue – Capitalization of "Upstate" New York.
• Talk:Southern Italy#Lowercase or uppercase? – Capitalisation of "southern". Also "northern" and "central" in related articles.
• Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (capitalization)#Capitalization of geologic names – Despite being opened on an NC talk page, this is about usage in general not just in our article titles.
• Talk:Fall of Saigon#Names section and capitalisation – capitalisation of Vietnamese language names and capitalisation of their English translations?

In a recent discussion on capitalising fortsinbattle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, Deor observed: Most of the (U.S.) style guides I'm familiar with recommend lowercasing a plural generic term when it follows two or more proper names—thus, "the Mississippi and Missouri rivers", even though "river" is capped in "Mississippi River" and "Missouri River"—but capitalizing a generic term when it precedes proper names, as in "Mounts Whitney and Rainier". If this is a consistent norm in English (ie not just the US), is it worth noting this in the MOS? Cinderella157 (talk) 03:27, 30 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

I don't know the guides, but I see overwhelmingly capped Forts in Forts Jackson and St. Philip, and overwhelmingly capped Presidents in Presidents Bush and Obama, Generals in Generals MacArthur and Eisenhower. Probably that's not enough to generalize from, but it's suggestive. Dicklyon (talk) 04:46, 30 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

Alternatively, just rewrite as “…Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip… ”. You don’t need the plural form when there are only two or three mentioned. Blueboar (talk) Blueboar (talk) 01:12, 31 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

I would go that way, since "Mounts", etc., leans toward completely contrived in contemporary English, and we can avoid the confusing inconsistency of potentially ariving a "before" rule that directly conflicts with an "after" one (WP:CREEP, MOS:BLOAT, KISS principle). At the cost of a repeated word (or, often enough, abbreviation), it also provides a great deal more clarity; not all readers are going understand "Forts Jackson and Saint/St. Philip" since the later has its own prefixed word or abbreviation. A weird construction like "attended the Universities of California and New Mexico" is rare because it is potentially confusing, and it isn't really improved by writing "attended the universities of California and New Mexico" since that seems to imply universities in those places (and that they are the only ones in those places) but which are named something else we're not specifying. Let's just not go there. Be specific: "Attented the Univerity of Calforia (1987–92), and the Univeristy of New Mexico (1993–94)"; "moved supplies from Ft. Jackson to Ft. St. Philip over the winter"; "Mt. Whitney (California) and Mt. Ranier (Washington state) are the two most-visited peaks of the US West Coast"; and so on.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:21, 29 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

MyBOLD edit clarifying what "sources" can mean was reverted. I don't think this is a controversial addition, nor is it a substantive change. But, sure, let's discuss first. InfiniteNexus (talk) 19:28, 27 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

It seems a bit strange, since the previous sentence already refers to "reliable sources", which is a well-defined term in Wikipedia and includes journals and newspapers, at least in general – so why does your sentence seem to exclude them? And why indeed would it be necessary to repeat what RS are? Gawaon (talk) 20:36, 27 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Because every time I come across a discussion about capitalization, and people present evidence from "sources", it's almost exclusively ngrams and news articles. InfiniteNexus (talk) 20:58, 27 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Does anyone else object to adding these ten words for reasons that are not needlessly bureaucratic? InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:12, 1 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

I don't see how it's necessary. If you try to enumerate sources, best include scholarly articles, too. Or maybe just say that random web pages are not usually good sources. Sometimes people object to book examples of usage on the basis that the book is about gambling (e.g. in a sports context), or is a children's book; to me, these are still valid datapoints about usage in independent sources, whether or not they'd be reliable for content. I don't think we can try to pin this down one way or another without considerable discussion. Dicklyon (talk) 08:21, 4 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

What about GCE Ordinary Level, A-level, Scholarship level, Singapore-Cambridge GCE Advanced Level, GCE Advanced Level (United Kingdom), Advanced Subsidiary level, Technical Level, and such? Is there logic behind the mix of caps, or something we need to work on? Dicklyon (talk) 09:59, 8 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Any opinions here one way or the other? Are any of these properly capitalized, or should I fix them all to lowercase like in Scholarship level and A-level? Also lowercase scholarship and advanced and such in sentences? Dicklyon (talk) 17:10, 1 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

Lower-case would be consistent with MOS:DOCTCAPS and MOS:SIGCAPS, as the default, but we'd use upper-case if the capitalization is near-consistently found in indepedent RS material (i.e. independent of the school systems, testing bodies, governments, etc., at issue in each of these). It may vary by case. I don't live in a country that uses these terms, and most of my encountering of them has been in material that doesn't pass WP:INDY, so it's hard to say. This is kind of half-way between the general principle of not capitalizing any academic subjects and categories on the one hand except where the contain proper names ("African studies", "particle physics", "third grade", "high school", etc.), versus the desire of some editors to capitalize all professional certifications on the other ("Certified Public Accountant", etc.). The latter practice does not have a clear consensus and is contrary to the intent of both of the above MoS sections as well as MOS:JOBTITLES (though it may make better sense for trademarked certifications, e.g. Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert, MCSE). So, I would lean lower-case on this as a general principle, unless "capitalized in a substantial majority of independent reliable sources" is actually provable for particular cases, which would take some work to identify a non-trivial amount of sourcing that has no connection to the bodies involved in the certifications. Maybe start with scholar.google.com and scholar.archive.org? PS: That said, a designator letter like "A" or "O" and an acronym like "GCE" in such things would always be capitalized.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:27, 2 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

The Twitch streamer/YouTuber F1NN5TER recently has a page created about them, but the capitalization of their page matches their spelling of their screen name on Twitch, Twitter, among other places. However, the name has no reason to be in all-caps as it is not an acronym or initialism. It is the nickname "Finnster", but with numbers and all-caps. I believe it should be "F1nn5ter", in keeping with several other (mostly music acts/songs) that are spelled in all-caps in as many places as possible, notably MF Doom, JPEGMafia, Crim3s, Hori7on, and 4Eve, but there's not many other pages that deal with all-caps online usernames. Discussion on it here: Talk:F1NN5TER#Capitalization Phillycj 23:08, 22 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

"Stylized in all caps" is for cases where the formal spelling of a name is not in all caps. To use the phrase in any other context is original research: We can't say that "F1NN5TER" is a stylization of "F1nn5ter" because no reliable sources say that. This is a screen name, so it has no official spelling (unlike, say, the trademarked sentence-case name of a company). We can only go on how it is spelled by the subject (AFAIK, always in all caps, except when not possible due to technical limitations), and how it is spelled by independent reliable sources (in all caps in a significant majority).

This is borne out in MoS. There's not actually anything in MOS:BIO or the main MoS page about applying the "stylization" doctrine to people's names or pseudonyms, but (a bit confusingly) there's something in MOS:TMRULES: "When a name is almost never written except in a particular stylized form, use that form on Wikipedia: Deadmau5 [...] but Kesha not Ke$ha". If we suppose that that does apply even in a case where a pseudonym isn't trademarked, then this becomes a fact-bound question based on how sources refer to F1NN5TER, which can be resolved on the article's talkpage. If we say it doesn't apply, then the only governing rule is MOS:ALLCAPS, which doesn't apply because the difference in capitalization in a screen name is not purely stylistic, and which, with the exception of trademarks, otherwise concerns itself with cases where a term would normally be sentence-cased but might in a quote be all-caps. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 05:59, 23 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

MOS:TM is clear in its lead that it applies to everything that is generally trademark-like, not just that which is legally subject to a trademark, so its material on Deadmau5 vs. Ke$ha is applicable here. And MOS:BIO explicitly refers to this material for "unusual name presentations, usually in the sphere of performer marketing", which this subject clearly qualifies under. If F1NN5TER is virtually always rendered F1NN5TER not F1nn5ter in independent sources, then it should be rendered that way here. If "a substantial majority" of such sources don't render it that way, and F1nn5ter is common enough, then we should use F1nn5ter. (I remain skeptical in this case, because the vast majority of user login systems on social media and related sites are not case-sensitive. The MoS default is always to use lower-case unless the substantial-majority upper-case usage in indy sources is proven.) The OP is correct in that this is pretty much the same sort of case as various bands and such; but the specific examples cited have ended up at non-ALLCAPS names here because the source usage is demonstrably mixed in their cases, not because they form some kind of special class. Unusual casing is permitted on WP, when it overwhelmingly dominates in the source material (e.g. danah boyd, k.d. lang, though the latter is getting more dubious over time, as fewer sources today go with the all-lowercase, or the unspaced initials, than did back in the day; but contrast this with CCH Pounder who is usually rendered that way – no dots or spaces in initials – and has published a stated preference for it – WP:ABOUTSELF does matter, but the preference has to be reflected in indy sources, per WP:SPNC, with more weight given to sources that post-date the change or, by logical extension, the publication of the preference statement).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:15, 2 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

I have been having a debate with Tony1 on whether List of tornado outbreaks by Outbreak Intensity Score should be "List of tornado outbreaks by Outbreak Intensity Score" or "List of tornado outbreaks by outbreak intensity score". The question comes down bluntly to whether MOS (which is Tony1's argument) says proper names in the title cannot be capitalized, or if RS, which capitalized things, is more important for the capitalization in a title. Tony1 has also switched "Super Outbreaks" to "Super outbreaks" in the article subheadings, despite academically published papers capitalizing "Super Outbreak". So, which is more important for article titles/article subheadings? MOS or RS? The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 00:17, 1 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

Noting this discussion was opened after Tony1 accused me of "vandalism" for reverting on grounds that RS capitalize things. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 00:18, 1 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

I'm always a bit confused by the "proper names" argument: there are plenty of proper names in English that are rendered in lowercase, unless the only qualification for a name being proper is that it's capitalized, which is adorably circular. Remsense诉 00:22, 1 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

Well honestly it needs to be sorted out for scales like this. Several science-scales in the weather-world are currently capitalized: International Fujita scale, Enhanced Fujita scale, Saffir–Simpson scale, Miller Classification, Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale, Sperry–Piltz Ice Accumulation Index. The main argument presented by Tony1, in short, states that all of these need to be decapitalized. My argument was due to RS capitalization. So even though it seems like a hot-headed style discussion opening, it honestly does need to be solved. RS or MOS/grammar for capitalization of scientific things. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 00:26, 1 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

The capitalization of Fujita, Saffir–Simpson, Miller, and Sperry–Piltz are on account of those being names of people. I'd question that "Ice Accumulation Index", but it does seem to be always capped in sources, even though it's a descriptive term, so I won't mess with it. Dicklyon (talk) 02:24, 1 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

I downcased the article name from List of tornado outbreaks by Outbreak Intensity ScoretoList of tornado outbreaks by outbreak intensity score, and have been twice reverted. There seems to be confusion about what a proper name is, perhaps muddied by the practice of using title case to expand acronyms (OIS), which MOS prohibits.

At the talkpage the editor strangely likens his upcasing to "Enhanced Fujita scale (an article that s/he started, excuse me), arguing that I would say it should be "Enhanced fujita scale" (i.e. not capitalized the proper name)", and that "Enhanced Fujita" is itself a proper name. But the editor still wants "Score" in List of tornado outbreaks by Outbreak Intensity Score.

As well the editor upcases main-text titles despite their being plural, which sits oddly with his claim that they are proper names.

I withdraw the claim of vandalism, given WeatherWriter's claimed reason.

Tony (talk) 00:41, 1 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

Just want to know that Thomas P. Grazulis the creator of OIS actually capitalized all three words. "Score" is part of the name, similar to how "Index" is part of the Sperry–Piltz Ice Accumulation Index. "scale" in Enhanced Fujita scale is lowercase in all usages of it. But in this circumstance, "Score" is part of the term. Basically, "Outbreak Intensity" is a different term (actually created by the Storm Prediction Center) while "Outbreak Intensity Score" was created by Thomas P. Grazulis last year. Hopefully that helps explain it. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 00:49, 1 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

WeatherWriter, the MOS says how to decide, but doesn't decide itself. In fact, it refers to reliable sources. If you read the lead of MOS:CAPS, you'll see the general principle, "Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia." Looking at the article, I see that the term was made up in late 2023, so there are not many independent sources yet. We don't generally pay much attention to the capitalization of a writer who makes up a descriptive term and presents it with capital letters – what matters is whether independent sources cap it. I did find this Tornado Project Online page that uses lowercase except where defining the acronym. The term is clearly descriptive, sort of like volcanic explosivity index and lots of other such things. I'll look into the others; e.g. Miller classification sure seems like it's over-capitalized. Dicklyon (talk) 01:48, 1 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

Actually, I see that site I linked with lowercase is also not independent, as it seems to be run by the creator/author of the OIS. So he doesn't even cap it consistently himself. I guess the question is then whether this new scale is even notable yet. Dicklyon (talk) 16:38, 1 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

I fixed Northeast snowfall impact scale and Miller classification, as independent sources don't mostly cap those. If anyone objects, we can have an RM discussion. WeatherWriter, if you still object to the fix tony1 did, we can do an RM on that, too. If you don't object, go ahead and fix it again, please. Dicklyon (talk) 02:20, 1 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

• Issue solved. The article title itself was moved to lowercase (List of tornado outbreaks by outbreak intensity score). RS and academic usage does seem to support the outbreak terms, i.e. “Super Outbreak”, is capitalized, so the subheadings will remain capitalized. But, I will not fight or debate the article title being “ List of tornado outbreaks by “Outbreak Intensity Score”, since the creator is the one who capitalized it and the other source did not. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 05:57, 1 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

  Also note that terms like "super outbreak" have been in use for decades and are not proper nouns. The fact that Grazulis adopted them as category names in the OIS doesn't mean we need to capitalize them. I fixed those headings. Dicklyon (talk) 17:06, 1 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

  It looks like the issue has now been solved. The subheadings have all be decapitalized. I did recapitalize the individual super outbreak articles (1974 Super Outbreak and 2011 Super Outbreak) since those names are actually capitalized by majority of sources including official government reports and media reports ([1][2]). But nonetheless, the problem is fully solved. MOS overall trumps RS in usage, especially if the creator of a name is involved. Thanks y'all! The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:56, 1 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

  It's not a majority vote, though, and it doesn't seem to make much sense to treat some super outbreaks different from all others. Gawaon (talk) 18:16, 1 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

  If they aren't treated differently, then the original question is automatically solved: MOS trumps RS usage. If we treat them differently, then RS usages trumps MOS. That is the whole question and reason this discussion really started in the first place. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:44, 1 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

  Indeed it is not a majority vote; we do not capitalize something unless the vast majority of the independent sources do for something in particular, which doesn't seem to be the case here. A simple majority is insufficient (and trying to determine one is extremely easy to fake/manipulate through cherrypicking). Capitalizing one thing out of class of things just because a slight majority of sources that one has selected seem to do it is a terrible idea. It's grossly inconsistent (and a PoV-laden problem of promotionalism toward a particular sub-topic and often non-indendent sources that write about it), seemingly out of an "I will do everything in my power to keep some vestige of over-capitalization in my pet topic" angle, which is unconstructive. WP's default is always lower-case, unless and until usage for a particular instance is demonstrably proven to be "capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources", and even then we are not utterly bound to do it, since WP:CONSISTENT is policy. People really need to stop approaching this kind of question like some sort of suicide pact. Just apply common sense, in a direciton which results in what is most not least consistent with the rest of the material, and move on to something more productive than trying to get "S" where "s" will do perfectly fine. Please.

  PS: See also MOS:DOCTCAPS: WP does not capitalize the name of methods, systems, classifications, theories, scales, approaches, schools of thought, practices, processes, procedures, doctrines, etc., etc., or parts thereof at all, so this question did not need to arise in the first place. The rare exceptions (e.g. geological/biological and athropological eras like Jurassic and Neolithic) are capitalized because and only because they are near-universally capitalized in reliable source material. It never, ever has anything to do with someone's arguments that something "really" "is" a "proper name" (for why this is a pointless waste of time here, and in general since even specialists for over two centuries now cannot agree on what that means, see WP:PNPN).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:56, 1 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

  I had changed a couple of headings but didn't move the corresponding articles 2011 Super Outbreak and 1974 Super Outbreak, as I think those are capitalized enough in sources to be controversial, but yes they are sometimes lowercase and not really proper names. I'm going to leave them alone for now, but I'll support lowercase if someone wants to work on that. Dicklyon (talk) 01:30, 2 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

• This was kind of a strange question, since the lead of MOS:CAPS says to only capitalize that which is capitalized in a substantial majority of independent reliable sources, so the answer to the "Does RS or MOSCAPS decides proper names?" question is, well, "yes". There is no either/or conflict here.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:25, 29 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

Should the names of regions of the Czech Republic include the word "Region" with a capital letter (e.g., the Central Bohemian Region)? Please see Template:Regions of the Czech RepublicorRegions of the Czech Republic#List of regions for a list of them. Google Ngram does not show capitalization dominant – results with more than a single result: Central Bohemian Region, South Bohemian Region, Karlovy Vary Region, Liberec Region, Pardubice Region, South Moravian Region, Olomouc Region, Moravian-Silesian Region. Maybe I should have formatted this as an RM (or should convert it to one). —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 23:47, 7 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

Is "Park Hyatt Hotel" a single name where all words are capitalized, or is "hotel" a mere lower-case modifier in such cases? I would tend to capitalized the generic term, just as in Congo RiverorBaltic Sea. However, other users seem to disagree and MOS:INSTITUTIONS lacks an example that could clarify this point. Gawaon (talk) 13:30, 9 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

This Hyatt page discusses their brands, including "Park Hyatt" and mentions "Park Hyatt hotels". Typical hotel names are of the form "Park Hyatt <City>". I don't thing "Park Hyatt Hotel" is the proper name of anything. Where does this come up? Dicklyon (talk) 06:13, 10 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

It was in the context of Lupin (French TV series). To me it looks strange having a lower-case letter there, but well ... okay. Gawaon (talk) 06:27, 10 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

It looks like the name of that one is Park Hyatt Paris–Vendôme, genericized to the Park Hyatt hotel in central Paris. Seems right. Dicklyon (talk) 16:02, 10 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, this is like "the Larsen–Feiten Band", which was the actual name of a band, versus "Coverdale–Page" which was the name of another band; if someone called the latter『the Coverdale–Page band』(which has definitely happened [3]) it would be understood what was meant, but not their actual name, so should not be written with capital-B "Band". Or in other words, the presence of "Hotel" in some hotels' official names doesn't make it part of the name of other hotels that lack the word, even if it's later appended as a descriptor/disambiguator (or out of ignorance/confusion).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:36, 29 May 2024 (UTC)Reply

This is a bit of a word-of-warning about the {{no redirect}} template, a.k.a. the {{-r}} template, which is apparently used on about 623,000 pages on Wikipedia (about 1% of all pages). Although Wikipedia says it "avoids unnecessary capitalization", this template is causing automatic conversions to uppercase in an undocumented way. If you type "{{no redirect|lowercase}}" and "{{no redirect|heroic}}", you (currently) get what looks like "lowercase" and "Heroic"! If you want "heroic", you need to use "{{no redirect|heroic|heroic}}". This behaviour is undocumented at Template:No redirect, and in my opinion it will introduce errors. It will cause uppercase to appear in the middle of sentences in a rather unpredictable way. Very few people would probably notice or understand when it will convert the link name to uppercase and when it will not. There is a discussion of the issue at Template talk:No redirect, but I wanted to mention it here to let people know to keep an eye out for this when editing and to show how to use the template with the duplicate argument if the template is causing uppercase but you want a lowercase result. The problem was reported on the template talk page six years ago, but there hadn't been any response before I noticed it today. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 05:52, 3 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

Please weigh in there. Primergrey (talk) 15:18, 28 June 2024 (UTC)Reply