Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Trademarks/Archive 6

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Newt

I just implemented the lowercase template for Pixar's 2012 release, newt, but according to this the article the film's name should be capitalised throughout. Could WP:IAR apply here; it's different from WALL-E, where promotions for anything to do with the film were just stylized hyphens. Alientraveller (talk) 14:25, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

No, it should be "Newt". A quick look at this Google News search doesn't turn up a single use of "newt." They all use "Newt" instead. Croctotheface (talk) 19:17, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Adding trademark symbols to the title blacklist

I have recommended that titles containing trademark symbols be added to the global title blacklist in order to prevent spam pages, and also re-enforce this guideline's rule on their use. ViperSnake151 12:59, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Have I understood these rules correctly?

I want to make sure I understand these correctly;

Punctuation substitution within words

should always be converted into regular characters:

• P!nk → Pink

Punctuation at the end of words

In names of people, products, businesses, should be removed; in titles of works, should remain (quotes or italics prevent confusion):

• The Aquabats! → The Aquabats

but

• Oklahoma!
• "Help!"

Numbers within words

should be replaced:

• 5ive → Five
• Se7en → Seven
• Sk8 → Skate (misspelled regular word pronounced "skate")

but

• 4G (acronym pronounced four-gee)

As far as possible, I'm looking for a general rule rather than a study of the individual cases, which I tried to choose as "typical".

Please can you confirm or clarify my thoughts? Thanks.

--Rogerb67 (talk) 02:44, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Lowercase template

From a discussion on airline bmibaby where all lowercase is the company trademark and some editors want to use the all lowercase in the article title and article itself v editors who use this guideline to support some form of capitalisation. All the other stuff argument obviously doesnt work but it appears from the articles using the lowercase template that it is widely ignored and a large number of articles based on trademarks use the lowercase template to render the article names as all lowercase. Should the guideline change to reflect current practice? MilborneOne (talk) 23:41, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

The way I see it, this guideline represents our best practices, which are unfortunately not always followed. All guidelines (and all policies, too) are sometimes ignored; it doesn't mean we should rewrite them. The consensus that formed this guideline a while ago involved a large number of editors, so I don't think there's really much of an issue of whether it's supported by consensus. Croctotheface (talk) 00:14, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I should also add that it may be that "bmibaby" is used so universally that there is a legitimate argument that it is standard English (or at least as standard as any available alternative), which would be a logical basis for making an exception to the "capitalize trademarks" language in the guideline. Croctotheface (talk) 18:24, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that bmibaby is just a trademark that is used on all the literature, sign etc and the actual aircraft, but the not sure that still counts as universal use! Other airline article like easyjet appear to change for EasyJet to easyJet and other variants every few months! MilborneOne (talk) 20:41, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I meant universal within reliable sources independent of the company, not their corporate or advertising materials. I'd fully expect a high degree of uniformity among those kinds of things for every nonstandard trademark. Croctotheface (talk) 22:25, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

OK but the Civil Aviation Authority list of licenced airlines has both bmibaby and easyJet listed with initial lower case which is independt of the marketing department in that they didnt have to do that in an official government document. Also note that it is used in lower case in Hansard the official journal of parliment! MilborneOne (talk) 22:50, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I am confident that the style the company uses exists out there. However, if other styles (say, "EasyJet") also exist in sources, our job is to pick which one to use. This guideline describes a method for doing that: choose the style that most closely resembles standard English. The notion that "official names" or whatnot should be the standard is just not what the consensus behind this guideline stands for. Also, what do you make of the idea that the real "official name" is likely something like "easyJet, LLC" or perhaps something even longer. If we actually want to use what's "official," shouldn't we have to write out the LLC every time? Croctotheface (talk) 23:17, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

The article does not state any good reason why such lower case tradenames should not be followed. 116.14.155.155 (talk) 00:38, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

The article does give reasons for standardizing trademarks that use nonstandard styles. If those reasons don't persuade you, you are certainly entitled to your opinion. Croctotheface (talk) 06:12, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

M*A*S*H

It says to use normal punctuation, such as Macy's instead of Macy*s, but MASH-related articles such as M*A*S*H, M*A*S*H (novels), W*A*L*T*E*R happily ignore it (and look quite silly and fanboyish in the process and MHO). Should they be renamed, or do the trademark of beloved series get a free pass over evil corporations? I note that respectable publications such as Time.com (not TIME.com, right?) and NYTimes.com write M.A.S.H. most of the time (a few times MASH, M.A.S.H, M-A-S-H). 62.147.36.217 (talk) 15:13, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually, my my quick reconnoitering, it appears that NYTimes distinctly favors M*A*S*H over other forms. older ≠ wiser 15:46, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I see what it is: it seems Google is now treating the "*" as a distinct character inside words, so googling nytimes.com for "M*A*S*H"[1] yields 38,500 results exclusively with that spelling. And conversely, my own search for "M.A.S.H"[2] didn't see any of them, but instead 10,500 results with the MASH/M.A.S.H. spelling. Anyway, it seems to me that something should be done about it, one way or the other:

• If M*A*S*H is deemed contrary to the spirit and precedents of the MOS, then rename the article.
• If M*A*S*H is deemed part of a justified category of exceptions to the MOS, then it should be documented too by adding a third line (below "avoid" and "instead, use") that could look like:
  • however: M*A*S*H

That would make the page more useful and solid, because I think it's puzzling to see an apparently blatant inconsistency such as M*A*S*H without some explanation in the MOS. A good set of examples and exceptions speaks volumes in a documentation. 62.147.36.217 (talk) 16:40, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

The MOS is frequently ignored, sometimes for good reason and sometimes for not-so-good reasons. We shouldn't write in every case where the encyclopedia uses a style that could be viewed as against the spirit of the guideline, as it would then appear that we're not recommending much of anything. My view is that there are some cases where you can make a solid argument in favor of a style that appears nonstandard on the grounds that any other style would actually be jarring to the point that nonstandard English is actually standard in a certain case. "M*A*S*H" may indeed fit into this pattern, though I have not investigated it. I view other cases where we clearly SHOULD standardize as "fixes waiting to happen." I don't personally think that forcing the issue by going through article to article and standardizing all the styles and then arguing with anyone who reverts is a good technique; I think that incrementally, over time, we've trended toward more standardization and better writing. The fact that we're not there 100% yet isn't reason to modify the guideline. Croctotheface (talk) 22:15, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

HarperCollins

There is a short paragraph about CamelCase, but it only covers "OxyContin or Oxycontin". I think it would be useful to add a word about a completely different case such as Harper Collins self-styled HarperCollins, whatever that would be, such as:

• a) HarperCollins or Harper Collins — editor's choice
• b) HarperCollins (not Harper Collins), because X...
• c) Harper Collins (not HarperCollins), because Y...

This one seems unsettled at Time.come (100 vs. 400 occurences) or NYTimes.com (1,000 vs. 24,000), though both in favor of the stylized HarperCollins. 62.147.36.217 (talk) 15:34, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Yahoo!

About this paragraph:

• • avoid: Macy*s, skate., [ yellow tail ], Se7en
  • instead, use: Macy's, Skate, Yellow Tail, Seven

I suggest to append a third line, like:

• • avoid: Macy*s, skate., [ yellow tail ], Se7en
  • instead, use: Macy's, Skate, Yellow Tail, Seven
  • however: Yahoo! (but Yahoo's site), Jeopardy!

I think this would make it much more clear how it works, or at least how it is currently used. 62.147.36.217 (talk) 15:43, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm opposed to that change; I think in the case of Yahoo, editors are just ignoring the guideline and the consensus behind it, sort of in an IAR sense. I don't think there's a broad consensus behind allowing all exclamation points; and there were cases, such as Panic at the Disco back when they liked "PANIC! at the Disco" or something to that effect, where we omitted it as decorative punctuation. Croctotheface (talk) 22:08, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

• Exclamation points are pronounced, so the guideline is fine.. –xeno^talk 12:56, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Clif Bars

Uhm, why is "Rolex" to be avoided, but "Clif Bars" not? I for one knew that Rolex is a watch, but not that Clif Bars are energy bars, before I looked it up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.65.123.101 (talk) 22:37, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

It is clear from the sentences that they are used in: if someone describes Clif Bars as "delicious" they are likely to be food, and the "bars" suggests they are bars. I agree with you that most people will know what "Rolex" means, but for anyone who doesn't there are no clues from the name or the context. Another possible reason is that with a name like Rolex it is unclear whether it is intended for use as a noun, or only as an adjective. snigbrook (talk) 22:05, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

That's actually really interesting, and it might lend some insight into the rather unfortunately-written and ambiguous reference the guideline used to make to "trademarks as nouns." It should have apparently been titled something more like "trademarks that are not meant to be nouns used as nouns." Croctotheface (talk) 09:22, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Why WP:MOSTM is a failure

So, on Template:Time Warner was the completely documented code:

''[[Wallpaper (magazine)|Wallpaper<!--"Wallpaper" per WP:MOSTM-->]]''

But the tag is deleted and the prohibited trademark again forced as:

''[[Wallpaper (magazine)|Wallpaper*]]'

By User:Shortride with this edit, in blatant violation of WP:MOSTM, and without any decent right to claim good faith. I reported it to the admins, and the answer was, "Nah, it's okay, it's easy to fix, besides nobody cares about comments, go away" (permalink). Rules are failures when it becomes so easy to violate them so blatantly at no cost, with the laxists still making excuses for the perps. 62.147.39.186 (talk) 20:25, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

It was possibly done in good faith, also this guideline is sometimes ignored or used inconsistently (for example Yahoo! or Jeopardy!), so if those are acceptable then maybe Wallpaper* is. Unlike Macy*s, which is used as an example, Wallpaper* is usually referred to with the asterisk, and it doesn't appear to represent another symbol such as an apostrophe. Currently I agree with you; because it was moved to Wallpaper (magazine) there is probably consensus for the asterisk to not be included. For the other articles I;ve mentioned maybe I should start a discussion either here or by nominating them at requested moves. snigbrook (talk) 21:58, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, I don't see Yahoo! or Jeopardy! as "inconsistent". An exclamation point is pronounced! –xeno^talk 12:54, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Some exclamation points change the meaning of the word or phrase, but some are certainly decorative. For instance, I think that it would be plainly wrong to omit the exclamation point from Oliver! because that would severely change the meaning. Jeopardy!/Jeopardy might be in the same ballpark. Yahoo, on the other hand, I think is better off without it. (For what it's worth, basically no reliable source uses the exclamation point in their text.) Obviously, other editors disagree there, but I don't think that the guideline supports every use of exclamation points. Croctotheface (talk) 19:29, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I guess you haven't heard their radio commercials.., "YahoOooOooo!" =) –xeno^talk 20:05, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Heh--I sincerely hope they don't pronounce it that way in their shareholders meetings... ;) Croctotheface (talk) 20:25, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

"most closely resembles standard English": too strong a wording?

The guideline, as it is currently worded, sounds somewhat unreasonable to me, and (fortunately?) it is not followed consistently. I guess nobody would ever dream of moving "CERN" to "Cern" or "GNOME" to "Gnome (desktop environment)", despite the fact that they are not pronounced cee-e-ar-en or gee-en-o-em-e and that they're not acronyms (though they used to). So, why must it be Kiss (band) and not KISS (band)? I don't get it. Why must the title of the song "Rock N Roll Train" be "translated" to standard English punctuation as "Rock 'n' Roll Train" when the title "Paint It, Black" isn't? In some cases, this rule has produced borderline original research: we have an article titled "Year Zero Remixed" about an album which most reliable sources (not just the trademark owner) refer to as Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D, and almost nobody as Year Zero Remixed.

On the other hand, I agree that we don't want to write "[ yellow tail ]" or "KoЯn" in article text. But the current wording of the guideline throws the baby away with the bathwater.

So I suggest changing the phrase "choose the style that most closely resembles standard English" to choose the style most commonly used by secondary sources in English, and the sentence:

Follow standard English text formatting and capitalization rules even if the trademark owner considers nonstandard formatting "official".

to:

Follow the formatting and capitalization most commonly used in running text in English by reliable secondary sources, even if the trademark owner considers a different formatting "official".

And then I'd move "Year Zero Remixed" to "Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D" and "Kiss (band)" to "KISS (band)". What do you think? --A. di M. (talk) 15:52, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

How do we determine "most commonly" though? That's the rub here; it's a highly subjective determination. Does some editor need to volunteer to research every single reliable source anywhere and develop a chart? If it's 51-49, but that flips to 49-51, we need to change our formatting? Such a standard would make everything into a big argument over a case-by-case determination. For instance, I think there is a very strong case that "Kiss" is more common than "KISS" for the band, though you seem to think the opposite. Aren't we better off just avoiding that issue entirely and just have the guideline unambiguously recommend using standard formatting? The consensus behind this guideline wasn't that there are a few way-out cases that need standardizing; it's that standardizing is better. As you point out, there's a built in check on the guideline anyway; editors can always reach a consensus to not standardize. That's how guidelines work here.

As far as the cases you point out, I'd favor standardizing each one, provided that the more standard versions have a non-trivial presence in sources. If it turns out that basically no sources use "Gnome" instead of "GNOME," then I think you have a really solid argument that "GNOME" is in fact standard. If only tech-type publications use "GNOME" and publications for general readers use "Gnome," then Wikipedia, as a general knowledge publication, should probably standardize. (Incidentally, "Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D" reads like the kind of way out hypothetical I'd provide to show resistant editors that it makes sense to draw the line somewhere. That's a truly bizarre style that we should spare readers from having to see over and over again each time the album title is mentioned. It seems that "Year Zero Remixed" shows up at about the same rate in sources.) Croctotheface (talk) 23:14, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

What about: If a clear majority of reliable secondary sources in English use a style for the trademark in running text, use that style even if the trademark owner considers a different formatting "official". If there are several different styles in use in secondary sources with no clear preference for any of them, generally choose the one that most closely resembles standard English text formatting and capitalization rules, unless there is consensus to do otherwise. (Wording could be tweaked, I wrote that in less than five minutes.) As for "Year Zero Remixed", if it is indeed the case that this title is used in a substantial number of sources, we could use it in the text, but at least the first sentence could read,

Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D (leetspeak for Year Zero Remixed), also known as Halo 25, is a remix album by Nine Inch Nails. released on November 20, 2007.

rather than the current mess. BTW the "over and over again" is only one time the album is referred by its title in the current version of the article (except in a direct quotation, which should be verbatim as all direct quotations), which could easily be replaced with "The album". --A. di M. (talk) 01:19, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

As far as that one particular article, I personally would prefer leading with the non-l33t version, but my main concern is with having readable prose, and "Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D" over and over would really muck it up. Which to put first or second or whatnot would be a matter for the editors there to decide, and I personally wouldn't have a strong reaction to something like you proposed.

As far as your proposed change to the guideline, I don't think it would be an improvement. I don't think it's that different from what the guideline says now, but I can just see all the editors whose sole argument for not standardizing would be "the guideline says we can do whatever we want." All guidelines are subject to being overruled by editor consensus (hopefully that consensus is thoughtful, based on the notion that the guideline wasn't really meant to cover a certain case), so it's at best redundant to say so here. In practice, I think such language would just serve to eliminate the force of this guideline by essentially inviting editors to ignore it at whim. Although it's difficult to figure out where to draw the line for a guideline like this, the basic idea is sound: readers are better served by standard English, and there's no reason we should call undue attention to Time magazine instead of Newsweek because Time likes "TIME" and Newsweek has the good sense not to try to insist on "NEWSWEEK". Croctotheface (talk) 02:18, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

The reason why writing "TIME" calls undue attention is not that they are capital letters (otherwise we shouldn't write "CERN" either); it is that most other people write "Time". Now I've checked and there indeed are many sources writing "Year Zero Remixed", so I don't object to using that (although I still believe that "Year Zero Remixed is the anglicized title of" is a ridiculous way of starting an article); but if only 10% of sources used it, we wouldn't use it, much like we wouldn't write "Cern" or "Gnome". The lead of the current guideline already says "choose among styles already in use (not invent new ones)", but most people miss it. That point should be made more prominent. --A. di M. (talk) 11:05, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

An example which was pointed out in WT:MOS is Kohuept: an album published as КОНЦЕРТ. Most sources in English refer to it as Kohuept, so that should be the title of the article and that should be used in the text except in the first sentence, even if the standard transliteration of Концерт would be Kontsert. The first sentence still should read "КОНЦЕРТ (transl. Kontsert, Russian for "concert"; /kɒnˈtsɛrt/), commonly referred to as Kohuept, is ...", though, much like the article Chuck Norris starts with "Carlos Ray "Chuck" Norris (born March 10, 1940) is ...".

(BTW, can we agree to continue the discussion at WT:MOS? It's pointless to have two distinct threads, and the other page seems to be more frequented.) --A. di M. (talk) 20:37, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I didn't really have much more to contribute to this discussion; I had thought it was basically resolved. If there's more to talk about, I don't think it would make much sense to continue the discussion of this guideline at another talk page. This talk page seems to be the best place to discuss this guideline. Maybe mention this discussion over there? As far as whether to put the standard or non-standard version first, there isn't a guideline that I know of that recommends any particular method. However, putting the standard version first seems to be the way just about every article does it, so that seems to indicate a consensus of sorts.

As far as the rest of what you're saying, I really don't like this "what most sources do" direction you want to push, for the reasons I described before. We're either forced to interpret "most" literally and count votes, which is more or less impossible, or we're forced to argue every single case back and forth every single time. Do your sources count for more than mine? Do I win extra points if I find ten examples for my side and present them while you only present three? (Never mind that there are hundreds or thousands of sources not linked from the discussion--these things matter as far as convincing other editors, who don't care enough to do their own research, to agree with you.)

But overall, I still think you're not paying attention to what this guideline is about. The point of this guideline is to say that standard is better. The initial discussions that formed this guideline, which you can read in the first archive, did not talk about "most sources," they talked about professional style guides, all of which have a very strong predisposition toward standardizing. Incidentally, as far as following what sources do, all major news organizations standardize on a much greater scale than we do. If we replaced this guideline with something like "just follow AP style" or "just do what the BBC/New York Times/Washington Post does," we'd see a great deal more standardization than we get now. Croctotheface (talk) 07:28, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I mean "most" as "an obvious majority", i.e., if more than about 90% of sources use a style, we should use it no matter how weird it is (e.g. Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, not Shin'ichirō Tomonaga; CERN not Cern; Kohuept not Kontsert), because that means the non-weird style is not actually in established usage. That seems quite obvious to me, but I've seen suggestions to write stuff like "Shin'ichirō Tomonaga" all the time. If it's something more like 35% of sources use a style and 65% use another, it means that both styles are established and we're free to pick whichever one we like most (provided we use a redirect from the other one). --A. di M. (talk) 11:11, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

"Most" is highly subjective and can only be definitively stated if you sample a large enough proportion of the available sources. Say there were 10,000 google hits, if you sample the first 10, what are the chances that you may find the least used style is actually used most frequently in those 10 sampled? How would you know when you have established that "most sources" use a particular style? Would these 10 suffice out of a possible 10,000 sources, or would you need to examine 100, 1,000, 5,000 or even all sources to correctly establish which style is most widely used? Doing this for every possible scenario is pointless and time consuming. Instead, wikipedia has a style guide that says use the style that most closely resembles standard English. This is what most professional media outlets do. In the instances where they do not (eg, eBay, iPod), and the non-standard styles are so commonplace that using any other style would be confusing only then is the non standard style used. Nouse4aname (talk) 11:36, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

← This is what I'm saying. By "most" I didn't actually mean "at least 50%", I meant "an obvious majority", and said that my wording needed tweaking. If everybody (or almost everybody) writes "eBay" with a small E, so should we. The guideline explicitly lists the exception for those instead of stating the principle behind it. So, in any other case there will be editors asking that the "standard English format" should be used "because MOS:TM says so", despite the fact that no-one (or hardly anybody) use it (e.g. "Kontsert" above). I wonder why nobody suggested to move "Graveyard BBQ" to "Graveyard Barbecue" yet. What next, should we write "Fanshaw" because it more closely resembles standard English spelling than "Featherstonehaugh" does? At the very least, we could say, Follow standard English text formatting and capitalization rules even if the trademark owner considers nonstandard formatting "official", unless the use of a non-standard format clearly predominates among reliable secondary sources in running text in English, and add a examples for CERN and Kohuept to the ones for eBay and iPod. --217.203.102.14 (talk) 16:21, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I actually thought we had a wording like that someplace, but it seems not. This is essentially how the guideline is used anyway. However, "clearly predominates" is still too open to interpretation. Essentially the wording would need to be along the lines of: "always use standard English formatting, unless such formatting is never used in independent reliable sources." Nouse4aname (talk) 16:55, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Maybe you were thinking of where the lead says "editors should choose among styles already in use (not invent new ones) and choose the style that most closely resembles standard English"; but somebody might claim that if there's even one source writing "IPod", then he's not inventing a new style. Maybe adding "widespread" before "use"? No, that would be even more open to interpretation than "clearly predominates" is. (In my intention, it was intended to mean that if there's any reasonable disagreement about whether a style predominates, then it's definitely not the case that it "clearly" predominates — although it might ‘unclearly predominate’.) --A. di M. (talk) 17:10, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

You're right. The wording is very important for this. Perhaps we need something more like "always use standard English formatting, unless such formatting is virtually never used in independent reliable sources." (which is actually what wrote before deleting the "virtually"). But then add either... "where there is widespread usage of both forms, then use standard English." Or, "where both forms are used in various texts, use the form favoured by publications with style guidelines most similar to Wikipedia, eg) BBC, NY Times." Although I accept that this option will also be open to interpretation, especially if BBC and NY Times use different versions! Nouse4aname (talk) 17:20, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Generally speaking, I really don't see "eBay" as an exception to standardizing. We've had this discussion before, and it's probably not a terribly important issue, but I really think that one letter prefixes like "i-" and "e-", pronounced as the letter, should be lowercase because standard English for these cases is to use lowercase. So I really don't see that as an exception or a case where we don't standardize; I see it as a case where we have a new stylistic category, and what's actually standard appears nonstandard because it's so different from everything else. I hope that you can at least see that there is another possible answer to the question of "why do we recommend 'eBay'" other than "it's more common in sources."

As such, I don't support the proposed change to the guideline. The language that's there already (choose from what's already there, don't invent anything), should cover the same kind of stuff you're trying to get at. I don't know much about CERN/Cern, but it could very well be that this is a case where we should standardize, it just hasn't happened. There's a danger to being too descriptive with guidelines, since editors like to ignore guidelines for dubious reasons all the time. Croctotheface (talk) 19:54, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

The first ten pages of Google results for "CERN" only contain three results with the spelling "Cern" in English. (For some reason, despite I had told Google to only show pages in English, the results did include non-English pages, mostly in Italian, and among them "CERN" and "Cern" are used with approximately the same frequency.) I guess this is for hysterical raisins (CERN used to be called Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, but in 1954 it was renamed Organisation Européenne pour la Recherche Nucléaire while retaining the old acronym); but OTOH nobody spells "LASER" in all-caps any more although it still stands for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation", so "hysterical raisins" is not a complete explanation. Language usage is weird. As for ‘another possible answer to the question of "why do we recommend 'eBay'"’, I'd say "because readers are more familiar with it"; but this is in turn due to the fact that it is more common in the sources. I don't think it's a pronunciation issue, because they're pronounced the same way I'd instinctively pronounce the words "Ipod" or "Ebay" if I had never heard of iPod and eBay before. Nor it is standard English: "email" or "e-mail" are spelt "Email" and "E-mail" at the beginning of sentences, and I guess a proper name starting with /iːmeɪl/ would likely be spelt starting with "Email" or "E-mail". --217.203.70.164 (talk) 21:05, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

"Email" is not a proper noun, so there's something of a substantial difference there. I'm not asking everyone to accept my logic, just to recognize that the fact this guideline recommends "eBay" doesn't somehow say that we don't really care about standardizing. I hope everyone recognizes that there's at least an argument to be made that "eBay" is standard English while some other alternative would not be. Croctotheface (talk) 21:44, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Proposal

• Follow standard English text formatting and capitalization rules even if the trademark owner considers nonstandard formatting "official", unless the use of a non-standard format clearly predominates among reliable secondary sources in running text in English:
  • avoid: REALTOR®, TIME, KISS
  • instead, use: Realtor, Time, Kiss
  • but do use: eBay, not EBay; iPod, not IPod (but try to avoid starting sentences with such names); CERN, not Cern (even though it is pronounced as one word and is no longer an acronym); Kohuept (the title used by almost all sources in English), not КОНЦЕРТ (the title appearing on the album cover) nor Kontsert (the standard transliteration from Cyrillic thereof).

• I think it's a good step to move to accept adoption by other sources as an override to the backup default standard of English usage. I actually think that any notable adoption, including predominant adoption by appropriate niche media, should rule when a particular "non-standard" usage is considered official. I also recommend adding an entry to the effect that the non-standard "official" term should be used when it can be demonstrated that the usage has been consistent from the inception of the work or entity (or at least long-term) in presentation by the source. (I prefer not to use "Trademark Owner" as this issue hits a number of non-corporate artistic endeavours.)
• A similar issue came up when an editor(admin?) moved BJ Snowden to B. J. Snowden some time ago. My argument in that case was that the MOS didn't apply, because BJ is arguably a unique expression, rather than an improper presentation of the initials B. and J. (Even though those are her initials...) Especially in this case, in the presence of consistent usage (if I recall: her website, a CD of outsider music, and a few other sources all used that) and no reliable source stating that "BJ" is just laziness, or a mistake, is presumptuous to say that we have the right to reformat her name, or assume what it really means. (At least in my dialect area, I am certain that it would even be said differently: as one "word", rather than two.)
• We should not follow the media if it begins, en masse, to mistakenly correct Delerium to Delirium. In order to present art without bias, is it not our job to present it as it is created rather than through the filter of media? Would we reformat a poem which had similar aesthetic effects (including alignment) when quoting it? What embedded meaning could be presented in the camelcaps of ohGr's songtitles? Perhaps none, but is that our call to make?
• I've always objected to the idea that somehow it is NPOV to thrust a standard onto proper nouns. I see it rather as form of bias which forces a standard (whose standard?) onto words which are essentially not "English". While Wikipedia has the right to set visual standards for itself, I don't agree that English rules of presentation have dominance here. We make exceptions to standards based on language. We would not rename Jan de Bont, or the al-Aqsa mosque. (... unless they start a sentence?) Perhaps the best way for a neutral presenter to proceed is to consider proper nouns separate from our own language. Leave it to the creators/namers to interpret their linguistic rules and standards, and to obey or disobey. - BalthCat (talk) 01:23, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
  • ps: Sure, it may be notable that the original/official usage is discarded or ignored. Sure, the burden may be on those of us who prefer to adhere to the "real" presentation to demonstrate that it is official. Sure, some corporations change their branding like we change underwear, and in that case predominant and traditional usage may outweigh new cosmetics. I am sure I can think of other issues, but I prefer to address them from the other side, rather than a presumption of English dominance over proper nouns. - BalthCat (talk) 01:23, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

The rule that you advocate really does not have any meaningful distinction from a rule that says, "Call up the company's branding department and do what they tell us to do." To your NPOV argument, this guideline deals with choosing among styles that exist in sources. A rule that would essentially say "do what the company wants" specifically adopts the company's preference and therefore the company's POV. Think about how that rule would play with, say, coverage of a controversy that the company were involved with. You seem to want to draw a distinction between artistic and commercial names, and I can see where you're coming from there, but your proposal makes no such distinction, and it would leave us bending to the whims of any corporate brand officer who managed to find a newspaper to go along and bend the English language to help sell their products.

Most of the rest of your arguments deal with a misreading of the guideline, which does not cover personal names or actual differences in spelling, such as Delerium/Delirium. Croctotheface (talk) 05:34, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

• I said that if a significant portion of the sources to which this entity/work are relevant (not sources just sources at large) comply with the "custom" format, we should as well. I also said that if an entity/work are launched with a "custom" format and used consistently, we should use that format, and then admitted below that this may be a burden to demonstrate. How does this involve calling anyone, let alone a branding department? Sure you might need to find out what trademarks are registered, and when, but it hardly requires bending over backwards to corporate whims. A situation of controversy won't be any more difficult to handle, considering I said it should be in use from inception, or at least during an established period of time. If, say, SyFy decided to name itself sYfY ten years down the road, it wouldn't have been from inception (2009), it wouldn't necessarily be represented in the majority of relevant sources (TV Press), and so my suggestion causes no extra trouble. (Perhaps "any notable adoption" was misread to mean any single adoption by a notable source, which is not what I intended. I meant significant adoption, such as common adoption in the media of the appropriate niche -- such as tech and music reporting for the iPod, even in the absence of adoption in mainstream/non-niche media.)
• Rather than wanting to distinguish between commercial brands and artistic names, I realise it's not possible to do so without being subjective. So I'm suggesting we err (in ALL proper noun situations, not just TMs) on the side of representing the created or established presentation rather than the media filtered (biased) version. While the example of BJ Snowden and inclusion of Delerium may make it look like I've misread this MOS entry, it arises from not differentiating between proper nouns and personal names, and not considering the misuse of capitals to be different from misspelling. If a brand has always been TIME and never been Time, then to refer to it as the latter is essentially a misuse.
• Keep in mind here that I'm generally anti-corporate. I have no desire to fawn over advertising or branding changes. I do, however, have a strong belief in identifying things as they are created, not necessarily as the collective MOS's of the media chose to redesign them. I do also think that proper nouns are essentially outside of the control of the English. My name is not translateable, it would not be appropriate to title an article about me as "Balthcat", nor would it be appropriate to do so if I trademarked my name and started selling little figurines of myself called BalthCats. So, I would prefer we be open to corporate shenanigans if that prevents us from meddling or redesigning works/titles that have been specifically created contrary to English standards. - BalthCat (talk) 22:30, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I have to say, this is really into TL;DR territory here. I know that I of all people can be verbose, but I think it would greatly benefit other editors if you could make your points a little more succinctly. The issue with your rule is how to interpret "significant adoption." If you define "significant" as something like "virtually universal," or to mean that an overwhelming majority of "major league" sources like the New York Times, AP, BBC, and so forth need to use the style...I don't think you'll end up with any practical change to the guideline. I don't think anyone here here believes that we should standardize when basically no other sources do, and I think you'll also find that the above sources standardize on a much larger scale than we do anyway. If, however, "significant' could mean a handful of small town newspapers or an online news outlet that reprints press releases as written, then I think your rule would have the same practical effects as one that said, "Call the company's branding department and do what they want us to do." We'd wind up using every single crazy style any company ever invented to help sell their products.

To the notion that "TIME" would be a "misuse," that only follows if you presuppose that we should do whatever the company wants, which, of course, is circular reasoning because it's precisely what this debate is about. The answer to that, and the answer that the copy department basically every major publication seems to believe, is that rendering the English word "time" in all caps is in fact not the proper way to use it in English text. Croctotheface (talk) 02:22, 15 July 2009 (UTC)