User talk:Andrewa/On the Correct Use of capital letters

Why this page
The issue of capitalisation in article names continues to arouse strong feelings and will no doubt come up again.

In my opinion, one of the reasons it will come up again is because there are good reasons to believe that greater use of capitalisation in article titles would improve Wikipedia.

And again in my opinion, the reason it will arouse strong feelings is that for particular subject areas there are established conventions, and editors with expertise in these areas are uncomfortable with any other convention. And unfortunately, some subject areas have traditionally used capitalisation more than others. So Wikipedia can't please everyone on this.

The solution, IMO, and the only long term solution, is to recognise:
 * That this is a matter of style, not substance.
 * That Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia, and style is chosen to be of greatest benefit to the general reader rather than to those already familiar with specialised fields.
 * That capitalisation in written English has a clear and useful meaning.

If we follow these three principles, then we will use capitalisation far more freely and fearlessly than we have up until now. And, dare I say it, also far more consistently.

And perhaps then we can all get back to improving the content and navigation of Wikipedia, rather than bickering heatedly about matters of style. Andrewa (talk) 19:52, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Some previous attempts

 * User:Andrewa/On Capitalisation
 * User:Andrewa/Capitalisation in article titles

Neither of these is complete or current. They may one day be either updated or deleted. For the present, they're just old ideas that are still useful to me. Andrewa (talk) 19:21, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Proper nouns and proper names
Capitals are generally used in written English to indicate proper nouns and proper names.

But this is not the only use of captitals, and authorities disagree on exactly what those two terms mean. They are probably best avoided. Andrewa (talk) 19:57, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Arbcom
Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment (permalink) seems painfully relevant! Andrewa (talk) 19:33, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

ANI
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=763302116#Continuing_styleguide_trivia_disruption_from_Dicklyon.2C_now_becoming_simple_attacks_on_editors Caps in naming of rail lines

RMs
Talk:Mahendra Singh Dhoni raises interesting questions about style and consistency, some of which aren't being followed up there.

See also Talk:AB de Villiers which closed as no consensus, and Talk:JP Duminy which led to an RM which was decided on common name grounds. Andrewa (talk) 15:30, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Talk:Jang Wooyoung another contest between guideline and common name. Andrewa (talk) 20:14, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Talk:Lipiodol Generic vs brand name, brand name arguably a genericised trade mark. Andrewa (talk) 01:50, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Talk:Sbt (software) ...this a stylism not supported in third party RS... Andrewa (talk) 03:25, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Talk:Henley Branch Line Decapping branch and line on the basis of RS and also guidelines. Andrewa (talk) 05:51, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Talk:St John Ambulance Fullstop removed (non-admin close), nom stated This is the style used by the organization on its logo and website. One oppose citing MOS, three supports citing various. Andrewa (talk) 00:26, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Talk:Hà Nội T&T F.C. Still open as I write. Interesting case of style based on RS. The club is rarely discussed in English, and generally by speakers of other languages, so when the topic is discussed in these RS their style supports Hà Nội, which is almost unrecognisable to most English speakers, compared to Hanoi. Andrewa (talk) 19:45, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Talk:Leamington–Stratford line closed as decap, RfC foreshadowed. Andrewa (talk) 01:04, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
 * A comment supporting the RfC. Andrewa (talk) 01:04, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Small details
The recent RM at Talk:Design Patterns is interesting and relevant. Closed as no consensus, the RM was proposed to remove the ambiguity with design pattern.

Capitalisation is a small detail which is in this case being used as a disambiguator, not by any consensus admittedly and I did oppose the move, and otherwise there might arguably have been a rough consensus to move.

WP:DIFFCAPS (same link as small detail) gives Red Meat vs red meat as an example, and several others. Andrewa (talk) 03:20, 23 January 2017 (UTC)