Talk:Walks Like Rihanna

Requested move

 * 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. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus at this time, and strongly suggest clarification of the relationship between WP:COMMONNAME and WP:MOSCAPS. This has been a recurring problem lately in requested moves and requires that we get beyond local consensus and look at the root of the problem. One solution would seem to be adding an explicit statement in WP:MOSCAPS that common name does not imply common style, and that the MOS should be used to determine style (including capitalization) in article titles. The other solution would seem to be adding an explicit direction that the style guide is only to be used for titles in cases in which the most common stylization of the title is unclear, which would be closer to the way we negotiate WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. The final two sections of WT:MOSCAPS are currently attempts to clarify this exact problem, but have not received replies or yet established consensus. Please see Talk:Do It like a Dude and Talk:Nuttin' But Love to see more of the problem. I'm closing all three requests as no consensus and asking that discussion continue at WT:MOSCAPS. Dekimasu よ! 19:07, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Walks Like Rihanna → Walks like Rihanna – Per MOS:CT / WP:NCCAPS / WP:Naming conventions (music). Here, "like" is a preposition containing four letters or fewer, and hence it should not be capitalized under Wikipedia MoS conventions. This is a request to revert an undiscussed move of 11:13, 18 March 2014‎ (UTC) by JohnCD. See also Talk:Moves like Jagger, Talk:Someone like Me, Talk:Do It like a Dude, and Talk:Fly Like an Eagle. —BarrelProof (talk) 18:13, 6 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose - The current title is overwhelmingly preferred by the policy of using the most common name, and the manual of style specifically encourages editor discretion. The MOS is great for our writing style and when the official or common name might be unknown, but to argue that it should be used to take an official name with a specifically chosen title that is used by the absolutely overwhelming majority of reliable sources, including books, newspapers, and websites, as well as is the generally common name is fairly absurd. Our title guidelines and policies are unfortunately somewhat murky. But, what it comes down to can be gleaned from Naming conventions (capitalization), which states that "an adherence to conventions widely used in the genre are critically important to credibility". If Billboard is using a style, and Rolling Stone or the New York Times or Spin or just the bulk of reliable sourcing in general largely use the official title, is it really common sense for us to be saying we shouldn't be following the sources here in order to somehow adhere to conventions and gain credibility? Wikipedia is a unique construct in that our work is so clearly tied and based off of reliable sourcing about the subject -- making us stand out and go against the grain here just doesn't make much sense.There's also just the general notion (which certainly should not be the deciding factor in finding consensus) that certain lowercase words just look weird in titles. Perhaps this may give some indication as to why "like" and other 3 or more letter words are very often capitalized in composition titles but words like "a", "to", or "and" often aren't.--Yaksar (let's chat) 18:42, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, the MoS does not actually encourage editor discretion when it comes to capitalization styling (and especially capitalization of song titles in particular). The common name of something and the capitalization styling of that name are two different issues. Even when directly quoting from sources, capitalization is commonly adjusted without comment per MOS:QUOTE ("A quotation is not a facsimile, and in most cases it is not desirable to duplicate the original formatting. Formatting and other purely typographical elements of quoted text should be adapted to English Wikipedia's conventions without comment provided that doing so will not change or obscure the meaning of the text; this practice is universal among publishers. These are alterations which make no difference when the text is read aloud, such as: Changing capitalization so that sentences begin with capital letters and do not have unnecessary capitals in the middle, ..."). Also, the quote above given by Yaksar is an out-of-context quote from a longer sentence, in which the phrase "the genre" clearly refers to the genre of general encyclopedias, not the diversity of individual genres of each specific topic. I have no objection if someone wants to suggest changing the MOS:CT convention so that it refers to "three letters or fewer", or makes the word "like" a special case that is treated differently; however, once we have an established guideline, we should follow it consistently, and our current guidelines say (in several different ways and in several different places) that "like" should be lowercased in this title. —BarrelProof (talk) 19:50, 6 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment: I don't remember why I moved this, but I'm sure it was in response to a request. Struggling through the MOS swamp, I find MOS:CAPS which says it should be small "l", but I would have thought, with a title, we should follow general usage, which seems to be fairly universally upper-case "L", see Google search. So, I am neutral; I'm glad to have a formal RM so we don't keep swapping back and forth. It looks as though a bot will link the discussion at WP:WikiProject Albums so we get input from them. JohnCD (talk) 19:13, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose - The capital "L" is used widely for the song so we imho should follow suit. – Davey 2010 •  (talk)  20:54, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Support - Now this is becoming a battle of capitals. We must still enforce guidelines, WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CT, if there are no exceptions, like Star Trek Into Darkness and dot the i. "Walks" is a verb; "Rihanna" is an object of the preposition. "like" is a preposition consisting of four letters. Under NCCAPS, a preposition less than five letter cannot be capitalized. We cannot capitalize "like" in the title just because "like" looks weird and wrong without uppercase. Sources that capitalize "like" may not have taken grammar courses in college. If we capitalize "like", then we are ignoring how to make English grand and superb. Instead, English would be misused and abused just to please a common person, who may not have a slightest idea on how to use proper English. --George Ho (talk) 02:32, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Perhaps compare to Talk:Love You like a Love Song. --George Ho (talk) 02:35, 8 November 2014 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Policy discussion in progress
There is a policy discussion in progress at the Manual of Style which affects this page, suggesting that the capitalization of "like" should be removed. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — Llywelyn II   15:59, 12 February 2016 (UTC)