Talk:Rear admiral (United States)/Archive 1

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no move. JPG-GR (talk) 06:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Rear admiral (United States) → Rear Admiral (United States) — To conform with the other United States military rank articles on Wikipedia. Wiki:MOSCAPS Lists military ranks in two distinct general uses. I am trying to get a consensus for the article name. —Neovu79 (talk) 21:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Support Looking at the heading of this page is an eyesore. It is completely out of place when it comes to all other United States military rank articles on Wiki. Neovu79 (talk) 21:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose It's the other ranks that are the problem. As WP:MOSCAPS says: Military ranks follow the same capitalization guidelines as titles (see above). Thus, one would write "Brigadier General John Smith", or "John Smith was a brigadier general". We should use brigadier general as well as rear admiral. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose. Like Pmanderson says, most of the other military rank pages should be renamed, this is one of the few to follow the Wikipedia MoS correctly. It is possible to find examples from both uses (all upper caps or all lower caps) in reliable sources, here's a lower cap source from the U.S. Department of Defence[1]. Fram (talk) 13:41, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

There are also uses of upper case in that link as well Fram. :-) Neovu79 (talk) 16:29, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but (if I looked correctly) only in combination with names, not as a rank on its own (a chief petty officer, a rear admiral, a seaman second class, ...) ;-) Fram (talk) 20:14, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I'll bite. I will support this if we change all the rest of the ranks to correspond with this. Fram, if you set it up, I'll support it. :-) Neovu79 (talk) 03:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

Hmmm.... I guess the problem is, when used as someone's title it does get the caps, and when used to describe the rank in text it doesn't. I can argue this one either way, and obviously it's intended as an important precedent either way. The MOS on military ranks and and also other precedents such as Crown Prince oppose the proposal, and I'm tending that way too. Andrewa (talk) 19:43, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

We should have a redirect from the caps to the lower case form in each case, which would make a natural link for Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd, should anybody need one. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:01, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

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

Half of What?

The terms "Lower Half" and 'Upper Half' raise an obvious question: Upper or Lower Half of what? Perhaps WP can answer this question.Donfbreed (talk) 06:35, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Donfbreed, you're reading too much into it. :-) The (lower half) and (upper half) are used to help distinguish between paygrades and seniority. The only main difference is rear admiral (lower half) is the official full wording of the rank while rear admiral (upper half) is not. The correct rank wording for rear admiral (upper half) is actually just rear admiral. Neovu79 (talk) 22:12, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

The same question bothered me after reading this article. There must be some history to it or something, otherwise why not call it "junior grade" or something else. It seems likely that at least when the rank was first invented it involved halves of something, right? Anyway it would be nice if it was at least spelled out in the article, something like "the words upper and lower half don't actually refer to anything" so it would stop bothering us nitpicky readers. 209.6.94.193 (talk) 23:55, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree. It would also be nice if the article told us exactly why the rank designation of Commodore was abolished. On the face of it, abolishing one rank designation and giving it the identical name of the next higher rank seems worse than pointless. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.100.118.29 (talk) 20:24, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Not unique

Having two rear admiral ranks is not unique to the US Uniformed Services. Romania has a contraamiral de flotilă (one star) and above that a contraamiral (two stars). 80.123.210.172 (talk) 22:08, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

History/etymology

"Rear admiral" has always sounded kinda funny to me. It would be interesting to know the genesis of "rear" in this context. (The equivalent rank in German seems to be Konteradmiral [2] = "counter admiral.") [3] Sca (talk) 13:32, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Capitalization

U.S. Military ranks are considered a professional title and are capitalized, even if not referring to a specific person. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.9.121.17 (talk) 18:05, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

That is not correct in many cases. Military ranks generally follow MOS:JOBTITLES on when and where to capitalize. Please also refer to MOS:MILTERMS for capitalization of ranks. Neovu79 (talk) 21:37, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Dead wrong, OP. – Illegitimate Barrister (talk • contribs), 10:13, 12 April 2020 (UTC)