User:Andrewa/A proposal regarding capital letters in article titles

There have been many discussions over the years concerning use of capital letters in article titles, including some of the most bitter and disruptive in our history.

Wikipedia tends to avoid use of capital letters. This stems from the original draft of the article naming policy, written by Larry Sanger, in which he expressed a preference for this and offered a rationale, but also clearly labels it as his personal opinion.

Most recently, there has been a trend to follow the style used in reliable secondary sources on the topic of the article in question. This has if anything led to more discussion and conflict rather than less.

Principles

Wikipedia is written for the general reader

And this is basic, and will come up again and again.

Style, content, and sources

Whether a title is capitalised is basically a matter of style, not content.

Wikipedia has and should have our own house style, expressed in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style. We are a unique work in many ways. Our house style can, should and does draw upon other styles, but we do not necessarily follow any of them.

And one of the consequences of this is that, in matters of style, we should not necessarily follow reliable sources either. Specialised sources in particular follow specialised styles that are common in their disciplines. This has been the basis of much conflict and misunderstanding over the years, for example and particularly in the case of bird names.

The majority of reliable sources will normally follow the convention within the field. It may even be on occasions that all of them do. That still does not mean that we should.

We are a general encyclopedia. A style which is strange and even grating to a specialist in the field may be perfectly OK, and even preferable, for the general reader. And like the policy on official names, it will continue to be discussed long into the future, probably for as long as Wikipedia lasts, as specialists in various fields find that our house style does not conform to the practice in their field, and conclude that we've made a mistake, and demand that we fix it. This is an understandable mistake on their part, just as it's understandable for the CEO of a company spending big bucks on corporate branding to demand that we reflect reality and rename our article on the company as soon as the company announces a change of name.

But style can also imply content. The capitalisation of City Line indicates that City Line is its name rather than a descriptive phrase. While we do not provide references for article names, there should be at least one reference in the article that confirms this.

Detailed proposal

• Capital letters should be used in article titles wherever they help to clarify the topic of the article.
  • Capital letters should be used wherever this is normal in English, for example in proper names and proper nouns, book and film titles, and so on.
  • Capital letters may be used as a small difference to disambiguate topics.
  • Capital letters should be used to distinguish a topic from another related topic even if that other topic does not have or even qualify for an article of its own.
• Capital letters should not be used purely for the personal expression of editors, or according to their personal preferences, or those of people associated with the article topic.
• Capital letters should not be avoided purely because of notions of proper names or proper nouns.

Rationale

Clarity

Capital letters often help to distinguish a topic from other potential topics. For example, the Bald Eagle is a particular species. A bald Harpy Eagle is a bald eagle but not a Bald Eagle, and most Bald Eagles are not bald.

Normal English

This is uncontroversial. Abraham Lincoln and Gone With the Wind for examples.

The inevitable opposition

For some it is a bitter pill

Many editors have put a great deal of effort, both keystrokes and emotional energy, into decapitalisation according to the MOS, and into justifying these actions.

Grammar

Many editors (following Larry Sanger's example) feel that minimum capitalisation is the most or even the only correct style. There are two rationales for this belief.

Firstly it is often claimed that only proper nouns, and particularly meaning by this those that are consistently capitalised in sources, should be capitalised in Wikipedia. This is not the case. The sources adopt a capitalised or not style according to their traditions, circumstances including audience, and style guides. It is not necessarily best for Wikipedia to follow any of these.

Secondly it is sometimes claimed that capitalisation is used to indicate importance. This is irrelevant. Nobody is suggesting that we should do that.

And there's a third possible, unspoken reason. Early wikiwikis used camelcase. There's a strong sense that the current wikisyntax is far preferable. This may carry over to avoiding capitals in other contexts as well.

The process

• Step one is RMs. Individual RMs need to be discussed and consensus reached in an appreciable number that it is preferable to capitalise, contrary to the current MOS. While it would be preferable (perhaps even essential) to get a majority of verdicts, that is not logically necessary if those that go against capitalisation are mostly based on the two "we've always done it this way" arguments.
• Step two could be an RfC on removing the "we've always done it this way" arguments from capitalisation discussions... That is, calling a temporary moratorium on using them in capitalisation RMs. These arguments are of two forms:
  • The MOS says to decapitalise.
  • Other similar articles are decapitalised.
• The final (possibly third) step is to change the MOS.

See also

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Article_titles&oldid=335624959 is the oldest version of WP:AT currently in the database, written by Larry Sanger but he refers to earlier discussion which appears lost... if you can find this discussion, please post a link to this page's talk page.