Talk:Division Series

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Requested move 11 September 2022

 * 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: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 03:30, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

– These generic terms encompass the specific named events, the American League Division Series, the National League Division Series, the American League Championship Series, and the National League Championship Series, but they are not themselves proper names of anything. Per WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS, we should use sentence case for them. Similar reasoning is being applied to various wild card series articles at WT:WikiProject Baseball. Dicklyon (talk) 03:18, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Division Series → Division series
 * League Championship Series → League championship series
 * Oppose as MLB capitalises these playoff rounds. GoodDay (talk) 03:34, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
 * There's nothing in guidelines suggesting to follow MLB style. Quite the contrary – we're supposed to look to independent sources, per MOS:CAPS. Dicklyon (talk) 23:59, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I've already stated my position on this matter. GoodDay (talk) 00:29, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose, per consistency with World Series and overwhelming capitalization. Here are the n-grams for Division Series, and for League Championship Series. Major League Baseball uppercases these, which should be determinative. This seems to be an overreach by a loyal lowercasing adherent. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:15, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose - per previous opposes. Also, this sort of capitalization is normal in American English (and possibly CanE also) for names, and this apparent campaign is flying against the spirit of ENGVAR. Let's all remember the founders of Wikipedia were Americans, but wisely didn't impose one standard of English on English Wikipedia, so please stop trying to turn it into Britipedia. BilCat (talk) 05:16, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
 * If this keeps up, I'll have to propose moving Royal Navy and Royal Air Force to "royal navy" and "royal air force", since none of the individual words are proper nouns. :) BilCat (talk) 05:24, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
 * If following MOS:CAPS keeps up, those are secure. See my note below about improper abuse of stats that Randy did. Dicklyon (talk) 00:03, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose moves per above. The vast majority of sources capitalize these rounds. (The jury's still out for Wild Card Series.)  O.N.R.  (talk) 09:46, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Since the truth, as revealed by stats and book search and such, is that these are actually quite commonly lowercase in sources, you should revise your stand. An opposed based on a counterfactual should not be left hanging around here. Dicklyon (talk) 00:11, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose per previous opposes. Incorrect understanding of English is no reason to move. oknazevad (talk) 11:42, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
 * But the previous opposes were based on incorrect understand of either guidelines or usage statistics or both. You should revise your stand in light of facts. Dicklyon (talk) 00:11, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * No. When I said "incorrect understanding of English", I was talking about you. Personally. You have proven dozens of times you don't understand the fundamental linguistic concepts behind capitalization in English, have major issues with accepting disagreement and acting collaboratively (as seen by the bludgeoning here) and, frankly, you should just stop ever proposing a move based solely on capitalization. It does nothing to improve the encyclopedia and is a useless time sink. oknazevad (talk) 00:33, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Yup. Grammar isn't computer science. Real language is messy, especially English, and doesn't often follow contrived rules. Eventually, even "aircrafts" will become an accepted plural, no matter how bad it sounds to us old native speakers of English! BilCat (talk) 03:31, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose For all the good reasons listed here. This reasoning should be used for the discussion about WT:WikiProject Baseball as well. Nemov (talk) 15:53, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Has there been a good reason given? Please point out one, as I can't find it.  See note below. Dicklyon (talk) 00:11, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, and you continue to argue with everyone who disagrees with your opinion about MOS:SPORTCAPS. You've made your point, but arguing with every single person is WP:DEADHORSE territory. Nemov (talk) 00:15, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose - per rational given here. The series are proper nouns with the given context of the article.  Skipple  ☎  19:29, 11 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Note that in Randy Kryn's n-grams, most capitalized uses of "Division Series" have nothing to do with baseball, as you can verify with a book search (e.g. many are about the Central Division Series of thriller books, and Mythos Division Series, and Multiplication and Division: Series G, etc.). It's hard to pin down the baseball ones via n-grams, but you can see some interesting stuff e.g. here, where it's clear the uses of "League Division Series" are pretty much only in the context of "American League Division Series" and "National League Division Series".  And this one, in which it is clear that "the Division Series" (in its various uses) is capitalized more than not, but not by a lot.  The corresponding book search verifies that many of the lowercase uses of "the division series" are in the context of MLB.  Similarly, see the n-grams for "the league championship series".  And this one for the various "League Championship Series".  I don't know why Randy was being so misleading with his stats and claims, or why everyone else took him at his work without checking, or why some thought they should make personal attacks by saying I don't understand English grammar, but I realize it may be too late to recover from this SNOW unless some of you are willing to take another look.  It's hard to say these are consistently capped in sources, or are proper names, when you find CBS Sports saying "time for the league championship series round" and ESPN writes of "the four teams heading into the league championship series."  That and NYTimes talking about "the division series", and thescore.com says "heading into the league division series" in the same article where the capitalize "American League Division Series" and "National League Division Series".  They know the difference between generic terms and proper names.   I'm not sure what to make of NBCSports where they use "the League Division Series" and "the division series" in the same article; it does at least provide a little support for the LDS name, which is scarce elsewhere, in either upper or lower. There are tons of examples of lowercase usage of these title terms, but you have to look past headlines.  Keep in mind that we use sentence case for titles, so what you read in headlines provides no data about that (but titles and headings and headlines do certainly up the counts of capped n-grams). Dicklyon (talk) 05:03, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The ngrams I used uppercased "League", so let's see the lowercase n-gram that you are searching for and finding scattered examples and see why they are scattered. And then there is the Division Series, which began in 1981, so here are the ngrams since 1981 which seems to put your lowercase theory to a test, although adding "the" will get them closer but uppercasing still uses the style of Major League Baseball itself, which follow the style of World Series and uppercases. Randy Kryn (talk) 10:36, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Support. Have to concur with Dicklyon. If lower-case is good enough for CBS Sports and ESPN (for this specific and exact context, not the b.s. that Kryn's misuse of Google Ngrams barfed up), then it's good enough for WP.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:00, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Where are the CBS and ESPN side-by-side number of usage that show that they consistently uppercase which you got your example from, I can't locate it. But here, more importantly, is Major League Baseball's uppercase naming of the Division Series (which follows their uppercasing of World Series and League Championship Series). Respectfully and without insults, thinking that the official Major League Baseball uppercase style should be ignored seems less than encyclopedic. Randy Kryn (talk) 10:47, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Randy, what are you trying to ask? Nobody has claimed that CBS Sport or ESPN consistently uses uppercase (nor lowercase) for these terms. Dicklyon (talk) 17:04, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * ESPN uses lowercase more consistently than CBS Sports does .  Both clearly treat capitalization as optional when not in the context of AL or NL.  Dicklyon (talk) 17:17, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * The NYTimes, on the other hand, seems to be completely consistent in using lowercase; like they actually have a house style (like we do). They are less consistent with "league championship series". Dicklyon (talk) 17:26, 12 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Comment - Before emotions get the best of us. Let's remind ourselves, that the result of this RM (whatever it is) will be respected. No 'one' editor, or a possible group of editors, will be able to force their preference on these pages. In the meantime, let's be mindful of WP:BLUDGEON, during this RM. GoodDay (talk) 17:56, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't see anything looking emotional here, but I do want people to look at guidelines and evidence before opposing, and I was sadly rather late in getting the evidence in to refute the claims of early opposers. Dicklyon (talk) 00:11, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Pinging for another look –  It would be good if you'd read the note above, and my responses to your Oppose votes, and examine the actual usage statisics, and then make another comment in light of those. Dicklyon (talk) 00:11, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I haven't changed my position, on this matter. GoodDay (talk) 00:13, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with my grasp of the English language and MOS:SPORTSCAPS. Nemov (talk) 00:17, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't see anything concrete that makes me feel that there is common standardization. I'm not devastated either way. My gut feeling is the article describes formal events, which should be styled as a proper noun.  Skipple  ☎  00:20, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I stated my peace. I feel zero need to add to my !vote. Frankly, the ping is obnoxious badgering because you clearly saw that there was no consensus for this move and any closer would clearly close this as no move, and it would be a perfectly correct close. Please don't ever ping me again. oknazevad (talk) 00:21, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I concur that the badgering needs to stop. It's bad enough that so many NCAA tournament pages were moved recently with very little publicity of the move discussions, and most of those were year titles of tournaments, which are clearly proper names. Now this. Enough is enough, and I'm considering how to challenge those other recent moves. Given the opposition expressed here, it should be quite easy to overturn them. BilCat (talk) 03:25, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
 * If anything, my position is even more entrenched now.  O.N.R.  (talk) 12:39, 13 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose. They are proper names in the context of MLB, which is what the article is about. They appear as such in the Official Baseball Rules of MLB, such as in the 2010 version here and 2019 version here. Dmoore5556 (talk) 04:26, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Additional context: Major League Baseball holds an active trademark on "League Championship Series" along with active service marks on "American League Championship Series" and "National League Championship Series". Registration numbers 3732837, 1541956, and 1541948, respectively, with USPTO. Dmoore5556 (talk) 04:55, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Out of curiosity, would you mind taking a look to see what trademarks are active for Wild Card, Wild Card Game, and Wild Card Series and how these trademarks are stylized? I'm not sure where how you are searching on these registration numbers, or I would do it myself. Courtesy ping for @GoodDay. Skipple  ☎  16:55, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
 * MLB also holds both an active trademark and an active service mark on "Division Series". Registration numbers 3628857 and 2149819 at USPTO. Dmoore5556 (talk) 04:59, 15 September 2022 (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.

Service mark
Dmoore5556, thanks for finding a guideline-based reason for the capitalization of Division Series. Not that it's a proper noun, but that it's a trademark of MLB for "G & S: entertainment services in the nature of baseball exhibitions." (that's for registration number 3628857; the other is for apparel like hats, tee shirts, and visors). So per MOS:TM, we cap it. Dicklyon (talk) 04:47, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

On "League Championship Series", on the other hand, their only active trademark is for "G & S: Clothing, namely, caps, hats, shirts, T-shirts, [ sweatshirts ]". So while the full names with American and National are service marks for entertainment baseball exhibitions, League Championship Series is not, so should really be rendered according to the rest of MOS:CAPS, no? Dicklyon (talk) 04:51, 28 September 2022 (UTC)


 * No. Just stop already. Your crusade is tiresome and empty-headed. This is what I mentioned above about not accepting disagreement. Enough with the useless time sink. Move on with your life. WP:DEADHORSE territory. oknazevad (talk) 09:40, 30 September 2022 (UTC)


 * I don't understand what your "No" refers to. Are you disagreeing with my statement that there's no trademark on "League Championship Series"?  Or just disagreeing with th idea that we should follow guidelines?  It would be easier for me to accept disagreement if I could get a clear idea what we diasgree on. Dicklyon (talk) 22:39, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * No, you shouldn't bother trying to re-litigate something that was just decided with clear consensus. No, you should not waste everybody's time. And most importantly, no, you aren't the only one following guidelines. Your interpretation is not automatically correct. oknazevad (talk) 02:08, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Agree with @Oknazevad. League Championship Series is the name of an event and a proper noun as far as I'm concerned. The English language isn't a physics equation. Sporting events are considered proper nouns in American English so attempting to impose some rule on these articles is a huge time sink and time should be applied somewhere else. Nemov (talk) 00:36, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't think "as far as I'm concerned" is in the guidelines. Dicklyon (talk) 02:17, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I obviously can only speak for myself, but based on multiple editors asking you to WP:DROPTHESTICK, I am not alone. Nemov (talk) 03:10, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

By the way, there are also no baseball-related trademarks for wild card series or wild card game. You can search via various options from this page. Dicklyon (talk) 00:13, 1 October 2022 (UTC)


 * There are no reasonable grounds for "Wild Card Series" to not be treated as a proper noun at the moment. The series starts in a week, so at the very least, we should wait to see how it's covered by sources.  O.N.R.  (talk) 11:33, 1 October 2022 (UTC)