User:Andrewa/On the Correct Use of capital letters

This is an essay.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

This page in a nutshell: Using capital letters wherever they clarify the meaning of a Wikipedia article title has significant benefits, and no corresponding disadvantages.

Wikpedia has traditionally avoided use of capital letters in article titles, but they have been used in individual articles argued case by case, and in some subject areas, controversially.

This essay argues that a simpler convention would be more helpful both to readers and to editors, and that we should use capital letters in an article title whenever this makes the topic of the article clearer to our readers.

It is not a specific proposal, but a case that one should be developed and adopted.

Background

Written English

In written English, capital letters are used for several purposes. By far the most common are:

As the initial letter in a sentence.
To indicate acronyms and initialisms. ^[a]
As a means of emphasis. ^[b]
As the default when an encoding does not allow case to be indicated. ^[c]
To indicate that a noun phrase refers to a specific instance of the concept described by the phrase, rather than to the general concept.

If noun phrase is understood in the most general sense, to include for example names such as Albert Einstein and Paris, then these cover almost all uses of capital letters.

It is the last use that interests us here: To indicate that a noun phrase refers to a specific instance of the concept described by the phrase, rather than to the general concept. This is generally a device of style but it does also often carry some semantic content. It enables us to tell that Brown's Ferry refers to a locality by that name, rather than to any ferry associated with a Mr Brown.

Existing Wikipedia guidelines

Wikipedia has traditionally avoided capitalisation in article titles. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters currently [1] reads in part Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization. In English, capitalization is primarily needed for proper names, acronyms, or for the first word of a sentence. This may seem good in theory, but has in practice led to conflict and lack of consistency.

The MOS continues Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is a proper name; words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in sources are treated as proper names and capitalized in Wikipedia. This local definition of proper name has again led to inconsistencies in style, is confusing to the general reader, and is very frustrating to the expert editor, who must often justify case by case for individual articles what should be a simple and uncontroversial decision.

The MOS does not specify that these sources need to be secondary sources, and is generally interpreted as meaning that if sources are not consistent, the default is not to use capital letters. This is a minefield if, as often happens, there is a style that is generally followed within a specialised area, such as dog breeds or rose varieties.

Advantages of the greater use of capitals

Clarity

The underlying benefit of using capitals appropriately is simply that it makes the title more informative. An article titled Green Bean is about a particular variety of bean, while an article titled Green bean is about all beans that happen to be green. An article titled Fierce Snake is about the snake by that name... which happens to be quite shy unless cornered.

Consistency

Many specialist disciplines and subject areas have conventions (conventions established outside of Wikipedia, that is) on whether, say, species and variety names are capitalised.

Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia, and our style guidelines do not need to follow those used in these specialist areas. But within Wikipedia they should be consistent. If we defer to the styles used by the majority of reliable sources in these specialist areas, we sacrifice this consistency, as there is no consistency between these various disciplines.

And in practice, inconsistency is the inevitable result of the current Wikipedia guidelines. Where there is an official style guideline (not a Wikipedia style guideline, but one set up by someone else) for a particular subject area, reliable sources tend to follow it.

Reduced conflict

It is natural for those involved in these specialised disciplines to prefer the style that is conventional in their discipline, and even to regard any other style as blatantly incorrect.

This will always be a source of disagreement. But if Wikipedia adopts by consensus a consistent and well reasoned style, there is at least a standard reference, less need for discussion, and less opportunity for misunderstanding.

It should be no more a source of conflict than the irritation felt by us all when a Wikipedia article adopts a style at odds with the one we learned in primary school and which we have always from then on regarded as correct, or that which Americans feel when confronted by Australian spellings (and vice versa).

Problems

Style and content

There is a tendency to think that, if Wikipedia were to adopt a style at variance with reliable sources in a particular area, that this is advocating change, or worse, introducing inaccurate content.

Wikipedia has a sufficient following that we now do have some power to change common English usage. But that is a different thing to advocating these changes. Our styles are chosen for the benefit of our readers. If doing this for example puts pressure on the International Society of Oogle-Box Makers to change their preferred style for the names of varieties of Oogle-Box to conform to ours, then that is collateral damage, but that's neither our intent nor our fault.

Our style decisions should not be compromised by the fear that we will inadvertently change common English usage, however well grounded that fear may be.

Nor need our style decisions be based on the styles adopted by others, unless this reflects general English usage. The fact that we choose to style Green Snake or Common Pigeon with capital letters should not be seen as a claim that this is the official, or even the common, style for this particular topic, any more than our use of italics in other titles is a similar claim. Most of our article title guidelines and decisions are based on common usage, but others are not.

Where there is a widely accepted and/or official style for a topic name that differs from that of our article title, then a prominent note on the article to that effect would be a very good idea, to make this explicit.

A history of conflict

There are many entrenched positions on whether some article titles, particularly of species, varieties and breeds, should be capitalised.

The often heated debate has already led to the loss of several experienced, dedicated and knowledgeable editors.

These heated discussions have at times appeared to follow a vicious circle. Heated discussion tends to result in entrenched positions, which lead to even more heated discussions, which further entrench the existing positions. And so on. This is particularly unfortunate when it involves those with experience in maintaining and/or applying the MOS, as these are the very editors whose contributions to any change to the guidelines would be the most valuable.

But it is necessary if change is to occur to get them onside, even if it means asking them to accept that many of their edits either to the MOS itself or in applying the letter of the MOS will eventually be reverted. So consensus on any new proposal cannot be rushed.

These edits were not a waste of time. They are part of the collaborative process. But that's a bitter pill to swallow, and for some, patience is wearing thin.

Why they don't like capital letters

Looking at relevant RMs, discussion at WT:AT and WT:MOS and so on, there are four main reasons given opposing use of capital letters:

It breaks the rules of grammar.
It's against Wikipedia guidelines.
It's not the official style recommended by an authority in the area.
It is not the most common style in reliable sources.

But it doesn't break any rule by current linguistic theory, it shouldn't be against Wikipedia guidelines, and those guidelines don't need to be modeled on styles adopted elsewhere.

Which brings us back to common use in individual cases. At present this is seen as a valid reason for Wikipedia adopting no consistent style. Is it really?

Why they do like capital letters

Similarly, the arguments in favour of capital letters are:

It's according to the rules of grammar (proper nouns etc).
It's the official style.
It is the most common style in reliable sources.

But these arguments similarly miss the point: What will readers find most helpful?

Why they sometimes miss the point completely

And there are occasionally some even less relevant arguments both ways, eg:

The appeal to other Wikipedias diff

But it looks silly

This essay was titled On the Correct Use of capital letters rather provocatively. Yes, as an article title that would just be silly. As a user essay title it may seem poetic, but there's an underlying logic... and this whole discussion has been rather silly at times.

This essay expresses a POV, and the title reflects that POV, and is a valid use of capitals to (ironically but correctly) indicate that this is a particular view on correct use, not a universal view. To say the least.

But to repeat, it's not an example of anything we should use in an article title. Here it's a talking and thinking point. In an article title this particular use of capitals would not aid clarity, risks POV, and is inappropriate.

But we've always done it this way

Pretty much true. Consensus can change.

The very earliest version of WP:AT in the database [2] is by Larry Sanger. It reads in part I (Larry Sanger) am strongly in favor of leaving as many things uncapitalized as is appropriate. If we capitalize words within a page title, then whenever we want to link (quickly and easily) to that page, we must capitalize the page title. But this results in grammatically incorrect sentences, which is jarring.

And that seems to be the rationale that has led to the tradition that we avoid capitalisation wherever possible. This is not actually what it says, let alone what it justifies. It's been generalised somewhat, and has led to some heated discussions as noted. It's overdue for a general rethink.

It has more consequences than you think

For example the article on morse code should be titled Morse Code. It's not just any code invented by Morse, it's the particular one now known as International Morse Code.

There is no hurry to bring most of these into agreement with any new guideline. They do minimal harm. They can and no doubt will be dealt with in time.

In the fullness of time the principle may even carry over to departing from the current minimal use of capitals in section headings. Implementing any change to this standard is a tricky and enormous task, and would possibly justify a tweak to the software to avoid the need for numerous anchors to preserve existing section links. It should not be considered at this time. Again, the existing standard does little if any harm.

Details

Redirects from other capitalisations

If there is only the one article which could have the name whether capitalised or not, then there should be a redirect from the alternative capitalisation, as now.

If there are two or more articles whose titles are distinguished only by capitalisation, there should be hatnotes on each.

And there are some more complex scenarios, for example involving primary redirects, but the same principles apply.

Running text

Within an article, the article title should be capitalised or not in agreement with the style used in the title.

In other articles, the style used should be consistent within the article.

Proper Nouns and Proper Names

The term proper noun is still taught in many primary schools as a term that has a clear and agreed definition, and the vast majority both of Wikipedians and of our readers learn no more about it than that.

It's not that simple, and it and the related term proper name are both the subject of a great deal of discussion by linguists. We can and should avoid both terms. They were useful in the age of prescriptive linguistics, but Wikipedia does not need to follow this approach, and in most areas we consistently reject it.

These terms both carry unhelpful baggage. Many of our contributors think they know exactly what they mean, and that there is no room or need for discussion on this. One of the few things that most linguists agree is that there is no such certainty.

Notes

^ Authorites disagree on the use of these terms and on the use of capitals, but capitals are on occasions used for both.
^ Notably, shouting on Internet forums.
^ For example Morse code and ITA2.