Talk:Non-abelian group

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The article is inconsistent. Should it be non-abelian (as in the title), or nonabelian (as in the corpus)? 128.93.66.52 (talk) 12:01, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Searching for "non-abelian" and "nonabelian" it seems the first variation occurs somewhat more often. It seems like there is not really a clear convention on what to use here, but I think we should at least be consistent within this article and use the first style (as in the title), so I will change it to be that way. Clmul (talk) 21:07, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 23 December 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: not moved. per consensus. (closed by non-admin page mover) – robertsky (talk) 05:09, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

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Non-abelian group → Non-Abelian group – based on proper name Niels Henrik Abel; sources use capitaliazation. Johnjbarton (talk) 18:48, 22 December 2023 (UTC) This is a contested technical request (permalink). – robertsky (talk) 01:03, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. Abelian and non-abelian are clearly treated as common-noun adjectives in either a majority or an equal number of sources: [1][2]  — Amakuru (talk) 19:37, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

  I agree they are both represented, but the tie breaker is the man's name. Johnjbarton (talk) 23:13, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

  I wouldn't set too much store by that - there are plenty of common words which are derived form people's names - including such things as silhouette, saxophone, nicotine, diesel and others. But there is no obligation to capitalise such words. The real tie-breaker is the same as anything else - MOS:CAPS - which advises us to only use title case for terms that are "consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources". Something which has been shown not to be the case here. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 11:52, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

  Oppose. A change like this needs a consensus first, and such a large scale change needs a strong concensus. It should not be done by one individual going from topic to topic making the change. And there is no rule in English that anything derived from a person's name is capitalised ("watt" for example); if anything getting to be lowercased is the evidence of higher regard for the person. Imaginatorium (talk) 09:05, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

​Oppose: Uh, which "sources use capitalization"? Capitalizing "abelian" is quite unusual. Artin's Algebra (1991) consistently uses "abelian" and "nonabelian". Dummit & Foote's Abstract Algebra (1991) and Lang's Algebra (2002) both use "abelian" and "non-abelian". These are all standard undergraduate and graduate texts; if "Abelian" were a common spelling, I would expect to see it there. Bernanke's Crossbow (talk) 05:31, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose – my experience from undergrad mathematics is that it's a common, uncapitalised, noun. Sceptre (talk) 22:03, 29 December 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.