Talk:Caleb Lawrence McGillvary

Requested move 22 January 2023

 * 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: Page moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jerium (talk) 22:53, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Kai the Hatchet-Wielding Hitchhiker → Caleb Lawrence McGillvary – This article goes well beyond the scope of the original viral video title. In fact, the lengthiest section is on McGillvary's murder conviction. The new Netflix documentary speaks even more about the person himself, and could potentially be used as the basis to further elaborate upon a biographical article about McGillvary. Mbdfar (talk) 22:35, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Support. I firmly believe that articles should be titled based on the notability which connects their contents. In this case, that subject is the man himself, not the video. While it was previously true that the man was only famous for 1 event (the video), that has since ballooned into his fame about the murder conviction and his unlikely story as a hitchhiker etc. with publication of the documentary and other articles about him in its wake. The person himself is now clearly the notable subject per WP:NBIO. — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 22:47, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Support. The objections brought up in the last AfD are no longer valid - a crime has happened, he has been tried and convicted and there has been widespread media coverage including a Netflix doc that resulted in almost 2 million page views of this page ie. it's a very popular topic. User:ReaderofthePack (as User:Tokyogirl79) wrote an amazing biography that was deleted in the last AfD.. I have tried to find a copy on Deletionpedia but no luck. This should be the version we base any new article from because she really did in-depth research and it was lengthy and well-written. Perhaps we can ask for a WP:REFUND if this RfM passes. --  Green  C  23:52, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * It seems this is the latest archived version of the biography before the 2016 AfD. Mbdfar (talk) 23:59, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah, that's it. -- Green  C  01:43, 23 January 2023 (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.
 * Support. It's clearly not just about the video anymore. ǁ ǁǁ ǁ Chalk19 (talk) 06:44, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Netflix documentary error
There were two tips that lead to Kai's arrest in Philadelphia. The Netflix documentary mentioned only one: a Starbucks employee. The other tip was from a New Jersey man. His tip notified authorities that Kai was heading to Philadelphia. 2601:83:8100:B:8BC:7B42:E191:2212 (talk) 23:56, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Title case
Hi @Shibbolethink, can you please clarify what you mean when you say a source becomes less verifiable when title case is modified? Revirvlkodlaku (talk) 17:11, 12 February 2023 (UTC) Hello @Shibbolethink, I have tagged you in a discussion after you reverted my edit...please take the time to respond to my concern. Thank you. Revirvlkodlaku (talk) 05:41, 14 February 2023 (UTC)


 * FYI, when you don't get the tag right the first time (e.g. here), it doesn't ping the person when you correct it, unless you put the "ping" in the edit summary. That's why I didn't see this.To answer your question: Citing sources When an article is already consistent, avoid: switching between major citation styles or replacing the preferred style of one academic discipline with another'sand also see this note on Manual of Style/Titles of works which deals with how we treat references, as the titles are typically treated as a quotation.

Also on that page under MOS:TITLECAPS: Citation style permits the use of pre-defined, off-Wikipedia citation styles within Wikipedia, and some of these expect sentence case for certain titles (usually article and chapter titles). Title case should not be imposed on such titles under such a citation style when that style is the one consistently used in an article.

As far as I can ascertain, the precise situation of title idiosyncrasies in English-language works in citations is not defined in the MOS. TITLECAPS refers to "article titles" and "in the article text". It then goes on to separate this from reference style. So the above two things are the closest we get. This is also, as far as I am aware, why the many title-case pruning functions of WP:AWB specifically avoid citation templates. I think it may be overall ambiguous, but errs on the side of maintaining page-specific style. If you'd like to change that, I would suggest an RFC either here or at MOS:TITLECAPS. — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 06:05, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Another problem with your edits: we don't wikilink things like New Jersey. See MOS:LINKSTYLE — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 06:07, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
 * @Shibbolethink, removing capitalization from coordinating conjunctions is not a change of citation style—can you point to a style guide that states these should be capitalized in title case?
 * Also, your response doesn't actually address my question: You have made the claim that a source becomes less verifiable when title case is modified. Can you explain how it is less verifiable? (besides the fact that, since title case calls for coordinating conjunctions to be lowercase, it isn't, in fact, modified)
 * Lastly, whether or not New Jersey is linked is not rule-based but contextually determined—this has nothing to do with the topic of this discussion, however. Revirvlkodlaku (talk) 06:22, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
 * can you point to a style guide that states these should be capitalized in title case? Can you point to one that says it shouldn't be?I pointed to one that said (in essence) "titles of works should be in title case" and "don't change the sentence vs title case of citations"Verifiability is about searchability. ngrams tell us that case often doesn't matter but it sometimes does. When searching for exact matches, or otherwise trying to track down that precise article. Having it in the same case as the article itself is a slight gain in verifiability with no loss in article-text style, as far as I can ascertain. — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 06:26, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, absolutely! How about CMOS? Revirvlkodlaku (talk) 15:05, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The CMOS does not mention Wikipedia citation templates. I seem to have misunderstood your question, which it now appears was "point to an outside style guide that says newspaper article titles should be in title case"However, Title case shows clearly that multiple style manuals agree reference titles should be left in title case. Different style manuals disagree on whether (and in what context) "with" should or should not be capitalized. This should be kept stable on an article-by-article basis. I get that you are interested in making this entire article adhere to a particular form of "title case" e.g. lowercasing "of" "an" etc. And I have to confess I really don't care about this entire conversation, so do whatever you want, and don't involve me in it any further, thanks. But know that it isn't particularly based in any form of Wikipedia policy, and will make the references themselves slightly less verifiable. — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 15:16, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
 * @Shibbolethink, the link you provided does not say what you think it says. While you are clearly trying to wash your hands of this interaction, which you started by reverting me, it appears that you have misrepresented your case throughout, not only by making a weak case for lower verifiability but especially by misunderstanding title case and therefore posting links that do not support your position. I don't want to accuse you of being disingenuous, so instead, I'll ask that you be more circumspect about making reverts when you do not have a strong case, and when you clearly aren't very invested in the consequences of your own actions. Revirvlkodlaku (talk) 15:28, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
 * when you clearly aren't very invested in the consequences of your own actions You made a bold edit, I reverted it, then we discussed it. Don't make mountains out of molehills. That's BRD working correctly. I know what title case is, I know how certain style guides treat prepositions less than five letters long. My entire point was about the idiosyncrasy of citations not being in the article text or the title of the article, and so MOS not covering it. Note how many multiple references here deviate from Wikipedia's own MOS by using sentence case, and no one has fixed that. Because it's verifiable.Don't mistake your subjective opinion for objective reality. And don't assume that I am not invested in the consequences of [my] own actions. It's not assuming good faith.To avoid this entire dispute, I just replaced those references which you edited with more reliable ones. Using legal case in a newspaper title is already a red flag, so it made sense those sources were less reliable. Since we are here to write an encyclopedia, and not to have fun arguments, that should resolve this. Next time, when I say, "don't involve me in it any further, thanks", don't tag me. — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 15:35, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Mass revert
User:Revirvlkodlaku - please don't mass revert a long series of edits with the reason being you don't like my edit summaries. here. Most of it simply copy editing. I created this article in 2017 and wrote the description of it then and am responsible for most of the text, I know what I am doing here. Over the years it became confused and I am fixing and clarifying some things. If you have any particular problems with it, then discuss here. There was no reason to revert all of my edits over an edit summary dispute! You have been involved with this article for a little while now and I expect you and I will be working together for a long time so I suggest we start using the talk page to work through issues in the months and years ahead. -- Green  C  09:51, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
 * @ Green, that's a fair point—apologies for the mass revert. I was surprised that you changed the sex of the person struck by McBride's car, and given that you didn't explain this change in the edit summary, I found it dubious. Revirvlkodlaku (talk) 14:10, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
 * As I understand it, there was a (male) PG&E utility truck and worker who McBride hit and pinned against the back of his truck. A female bystander who saw the accident came to their aid and McBride then attacked her. Thus two victims. But, all of this needs to be better verified with reliable sources preferably a news story close to the events. -- Green  C  15:12, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
 * @ Green, the original text, prior to your edit, stated that the person pinned by the car was female. I assumed this is what McGillvary stated in the video, though I haven't seen that. Have you had a chance to watch it? I think that unless a news report disputes McGillvary's statement on this point, we should go with what he says. Revirvlkodlaku (talk) 15:49, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
 * That wasn't the original text, someone messed it up at some point. He says in the video it was a man who was pinned and two women came to help and McBride attacked one of the women. Only thing not confirmed is if it was a PG&E worker, or just some worker. UPDATE: It was a PG&E worker: https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/california/jury-finds-man-insane-in-2012-attack-of-pge-worker/71208/ -- Green  C  16:01, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
 * @ Green, I just watched it—thanks for posting the link. In a previous edit, I removed mention of PG&E, as I didn't think it warranted inclusion. Revirvlkodlaku (talk) 18:27, 23 August 2023 (UTC)