Talk:Battle of the Mons pocket

Capitalization

I fixed the over-capitalization of pocket, but got reverted with edit summary Revert odd move. The main sources use "Mons Pocket". Please discuss on talk page. This seems odd to me, since of the 5 cited sources, at least 3 use "Mons pocket" (one does cap it, and one I don't have access to yet). As for "battle of the" part, that's also lowercase more than capped in most books, as far as I can tell. Basically, the title is descriptive. Can someone tell me what I'm missing? Dicklyon (talk) 06:01, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

The US Army official history refers to this as the Mons Pocket [1] as does the After the Battle article and Rückzug: The German Retreat from France. These are the main sources on this engagement. Names of military 'pockets' are generally capitalised. Nick-D (talk) 07:23, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

No, you're wrong on that first one -- the US Army page consistently uses "Mons pocket" in the text. Their title-case in the title is irrelevant. So 3 of the 5 cited sources use lowercase (assuming you're right on the After the Battle article, which I don't have). From my study of sources, I'd say it's not true that Names of military 'pockets' are generally capitalised. Maybe you're often distracted by titles? And few sources include "battle of the" for this one; the US Army page you link mentions "battle of" only in "the battle of the hedgerows". Dicklyon (talk) 17:10, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

You lost me with the insult. Nick-D (talk) 22:53, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

What insult? You found my observation that you're distracted by title case was insulting? I apologize for being so blunt then; but the point is objective; you said the Army used caps, but it does so only in the title. Dicklyon (talk) 23:17, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Oh great, now you're move warring. Reverted. Please use the WP:DR processes to seek further views rather than do this again. Nick-D (talk) 01:29, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Nick, was Dick really insulting you? Doesn't look like it. A contradiction isn't a rebuke. In my experience, Dick is a stickler for surveying reliable sources, which is what we're required to do, no? Tony (talk) 10:26, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 2 May 2021

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: According to a pure vote count, the opposes are slightly ahead. However, as closer I also need to consider how much each argument is supported by policies and guidelines. In this case, the relevant guidelines are MOS:CAPS:

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.

and WP:NCCAPS:

For multiword page titles, one should leave the second and subsequent words in lowercase unless the title phrase is a proper name that would always occur capitalized, even mid-sentence.

The evidence presented by supporters of the move shows that the sources are preferring lowercase, or at best mixed usage of capitalization and lowercase. There is no evidence that the term is consistently capitalized in RS. Therefore, I find a consensus to move based on weight of arguments. (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 02:08, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

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Battle of the Mons Pocket → Battle of the Mons pocket – The Mons pocket is not generally capped in sources, including 3 4 of the 5 cited sources on this article that use lowercase pocket. See talk section above. Dicklyon (talk) 05:15, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose The term is capitalised in the After the Battle article, which is the longest and most detailed work I've been able to find on these events, as well as well as Rückzug: The German Retreat from France which covers the topic in some detail from the German perspective. It's correct that the US Army official history doesn't use this capitalisation in the body of the text, but does in the title of the relevant section. The USAAF history uses 'Mons pocket' and the other US Army source just refers to 'Mons' as it briefly covers the topic. A Google search seems to return roughly equal usage of both forms of capitalisation across various works. Nick-D (talk) 08:01, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

  Your "seems to return roughly equal usage" is false, but if it were true, "roughly equal" in sources definitely means that WP defaults to lowercase, per WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS. Your linked Google Books search (when I ran it just now; could vary) shows 5 using it with lowercase pocket in sentences, and only one using capped Mons Pocket. Clicking through on one that has a capped heading, and has a preview, you find all lowercase in the text (for this and all the other pockets). More broadly, Oocurrences in books are dominantly lowercase except in recent years (most notably 2007 and 2017), and clicking through to see what the recent caps are about, we find a pile of 2007 releases from Stackpole Books that cap it (except for one that doesn't); and in 2017 a book with multiple headings/captions "Retreat Through the Mons Pocket", so those occurrences, which are counted in the n-grams, are not actually supportive of treatment as a proper name. And "Bottle of the Mons Pocket", capped or not, is very rare in sources, just in a title or two as far as I can tell. No evidence of it being a proper name for this action. Dicklyon (talk) 17:03, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose per Nick. ~ HAL333 04:03, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

  What do you mean, "per Nick"? You just want to repeat what he said that was demonstrated false? Why not say something related to guidelines or sources instead? Dicklyon (talk) 04:15, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

• Suppport, per WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS, since not consistently capitalized in sources, even the ones we're already citing.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:54, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
• Support. User:HAL333, could you please explain your reasoning, given that there are a few false premises in Nick's post that you defer to. Nick writes, inter alia: "It's correct that the US Army official history doesn't use this capitalisation in the body of the text, but does in the title of the relevant section." Um, well, he knows already that Titles are Usually Rendered in Title Case. So what's his point? And capping (in main text, not in titles, please) must be overwhelmingly prevalent for WP to follow, all other things being equal. Tony (talk) 11:49, 3 May 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per Nick-D. The debate is over "what is the form used in reliable sources" and I am inclined to give much more deference to the article creator as the expert on the predominant term used in sources, Nick-D, since he presumably gave them the most in-depth look in the process of writing this article. SnowFire (talk) 22:11, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

  That's a rather preposterous presumption, given how wrongly he characterized the case usage in the sources he cited. He is obviously not up to speed on WP's capitalization guidelines. Dicklyon (talk) 02:05, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

• Support per nom and SMcCandlish. Wikipedia generally prefers lowercase when sources are mixed. I don't really see a clear counterargument here. — BarrelProof (talk) 04:54, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
• Support per WP:NCCAPS. Compare Falaise pocket, fought a couple of weeks earlier. Both pockets were battlefields, but neither is a geographic location (which would justify capitalisation). Narky Blert (talk) 10:23, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
• Support per BarrelProof. It should be lowercase unless the RSes say otherwise; if RSes are mixed, then lowercase. Everyone seems to agree RSes are mixed, so that should be that? Levivich ^harass/_hound 21:18, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
• Note that this RM is also being discussed at WP:AN/I#Hectoring comments in a RM discussion by Dicklyon. Dicklyon (talk) 23:22, 7 May 2021 (UTC)
• Trumpian escalation damages the reputation of RfCs. Tony (talk) 01:49, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per Nick-D. - wolf 07:50, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

  So, just a cult of personality thing here? No actual rationale related to guidelines or sources? Dicklyon (talk) 17:18, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

  • • I suppose I could say I chose a "cult of personality" over a lack of personality, but really I just agreed with Nick's postion. This type of "as per" !vote is fairly standard, which you I'm sure you know, so that makes your WP:BADGERING here all the more pointless. Let it go. - wolf 19:23, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

  "Per" means you agree with and second his argument. But his argument has been shown to be wrong; even more so now that I added the More data note below. Are you saying you also claim that the capitalized form is more common in sources? If so, can you say what your basis for such a belief or claim would be? Dicklyon (talk) 21:45, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

  • • • (perhaps if I actually link →it← for you... - wolf 22:30, 8 May 2021 (UTC))

  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's conventional to push back on bullshit in discussions. Dicklyon (talk) 23:27, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose It's a title, event counts don't help qualitative decisions. Keith-264 (talk) 17:47, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. The best way I would think to render the pocket that formed at Mons would be the 'Mons Pocket', something like Keith-264's view. Thus 'Battle of the Mons Pocket.' Buckshot06 (talk) 18:29, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

  But is there anything in title or style guidelines that suggest we go with your opinion of "best way", as opposed to seeing what sources do? Do you find any sources that use "Battle of the Mons Pocket" capitalized thus? Or even just Mons Pocket (there are a few, but in a great minority). Dicklyon (talk) 21:47, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

• More data – Nick may have again been distracted by titles when he said that the "After the Battle" source capitalizes pocket. I finally got a look at a copy, and it doesn't use the term much in the text, but on p. 23 it says "Altogether, about 25,000 Germans were taken prisoner in the Mons pocket." (at the start of the upper left figure caption). So 80% of the cited sources (4 of 5) use lowercase. Dicklyon (talk) 21:41, 8 May 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per Keith, it is a title, and per Buckshot, it seems the natural way to write it. DuncanHill (talk) 21:45, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

  So you're saying you have no interest in following WP:NCCAPS or MOS:CAPS? Go with what you do naturally? Dicklyon (talk) 21:59, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

  I think we should use natural English not a forced and artificial style. DuncanHill (talk) 22:03, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

• Support. Levivich said it well. It's not disputed that sources are mixed, and so policy is crystal clear on what to do here. WP:NCCAPS says to only capitalize if it would be capitalized in running text, per MOS:CAPS. MOS:CAPS says: only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia (emphasis in original). I see no ambiguity here. Nick-D says it's capitalized in Pallud which he says is "the longest and most detailed work" on the topic. And I can see merit in doing some weighting of sources by coverage when assessing whether a "substantial majority" exists, but given that apparently it is the only source out of the five cited in this article that capitalizes in running text, that's clearly far from a substantial majority, no matter how detailed that one source is. (And, as discussed above, Google Books search results also attest to mixed capitalization.) Colin M (talk) 22:51, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks, Colin. But actually, I do even dispute that "sources are mixed", since they're really overwhelmingly lowercase. Mixed is what Nick claims, but objectively the fraction of sources that cap it seems to be only on the order of 20%, which I'd say is below any claim of "mixed" I've faced in the past. He just won't admit his errors in the observations he has reported, and nobody among his seconders seems to care to check. Dicklyon (talk) 23:37, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I really couldn't care less how this results, but I will add that justifying capping something because it is capped in a title or section heading in direct contrast to the body text of a source seems quite weak. Stylistically, titles and headings often cap everything but prepositions or articles by virtue of being titles. WP uses sentence titling so we don't follow that standard, and only cap things when its established as a name that uses such capping. If the body text of the same source isn't capping, I think it's pretty clear what the source is indicating they thing the name is or how it should be plainly styled. -Indy beetle (talk) 01:56, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

decided to ...

Nick, I don't mind that you reverted the phrase I changed. It's just that I was seeing a few of these in the vicinity. Writing that a general "decided to" do something leaves open whether it happened at all; whereas you're concerned to express gradualness in the process at issue. Tony (talk) 08:30, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

As the Germans troops were moving on foot and communications had all but collapsed, there were lags in decisions being made by commanders and the action being completed. As part of developing the article I'm planning to draw on Ludewig and Pallud to cover the German actions further. That said, I am prone to unnecessary verbiage and appreciate your edits to trim this. I'm hopeful of getting this article to at least A-class eventually. Nick-D (talk) 08:53, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Sure. You're welcome to link me to any occurrences of "decided to" or "tried to". I do think it needs to be clear where a decision was actually executed, or whether it was gradually enacted, as here. Tony (talk) 03:11, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

• Nick, what does "Overall" add? "Overall, around 25,000 Germans were captured in the Mons area." Tony (talk) 12:41, 13 May 2021 (UTC)