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	*'''Support lowercase''' for un-trademarked games. If there are any pro-caps arguments that go beyond "I don't like it", I'm keen to hear them. If any exceptional cases exist, than an overwhelming majority of sources will bear that out. ] (]) 06:35, 2 January 2018 (UTC)		*'''Support lowercase''' for un-trademarked games. If there are any pro-caps arguments that go beyond "I don't like it", I'm keen to hear them. If any exceptional cases exist, than an overwhelming majority of sources will bear that out. ] (]) 06:35, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
	*'''No''', per Primergrey. We need to avoid ]s as much as possible. ] (<sup>]</sup>/<sub>]</sub>) 15:24, 2 January 2018 (UTC)		*'''No''', per Primergrey. We need to avoid ]s as much as possible. ] (<sup>]</sup>/<sub>]</sub>) 15:24, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
			*'''Question'''. What is the purpose of this RfC? (To make no change to MoS, to make no clarification of MoS, while at same time somehow hand carte blanche to SMcClandish to lowercase any articles he pleases, without consensus at respective article Talks?!) --] (]) 00:15, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

	=== Extended discussion of game/sport capitals ===		=== Extended discussion of game/sport capitals ===

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Manual of Style

	This page falls within the scope of the Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style, a collaborative effort focused on enhancing clarity, consistency, and cohesiveness across the Manual of Style (MoS) guidelines by addressing inconsistencies, refining language, and integrating guidance effectively.Manual of StyleWikipedia:WikiProject Manual of StyleTemplate:WikiProject Manual of StyleManual of Style
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Merge in MOS:PN

It is further proposed that the redundant, poorly maintained, and rarely cited page WP:Manual of Style/Proper names be merged into MOS:CAPS#Proper names (which doesn't even mention the existence of the disused subpage). Doing this will centralize the relevant advice, and aid both clarity for the reader of MoS (MOSCAPS makes frequent reference to proper names) and ability of MoS editors to maintain and clarify the material as needed. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼ 18:28, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Strong Oppose for now, unless the merge clearly includes the relevant sentences from the proper name guideline when talking about capitalization: "Such names are frequently a source of conflict between editors from different backgrounds, especially in cases where different cultures, using different names, 'claim' someone or something as their own. Misplaced Pages does not seek to judge such rival claims, but as a general rule uses the name which is likely to be most familiar to readers of English. Alternative names are often given in parentheses for greater clarity and fuller information" with the key line "Misplaced Pages does not seek to judge such rival claims, but as a general rule uses the name which is likely to be most familiar to readers of English." 'Most familiar' directly clashes with that 'consistency' guideline that says, more or less, that unless something is sourced capitalized almost 100% of the time some editor can point to that guideline and the title can be lower-cased, even if the upper-case is the most familiar name. The most common-sense way of naming something is 'most familiar', and it's nice to see it formalized in a relevant guideline somewhere. Could have used this in the comma wars if I knew about it, but that one is set-in-stone and the Jr.'s commas gone and remembered fondly. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:01, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Relevant but long discussion about who will do the merge if this is merged, relevant sentences to merge, why naming conventions are out-of-scope for MoS (it's WP:AT material), and how merging works:
"Most familiar" is a title selection guideline, not a styling guideline. Many terms are familiar to people by virtue of their appearance in titles, headings, signs, etc., where caps are common, yet are commonly lowercased in running text, which is the indication that sources aren't treating them as proper names. Similarly, when comma styling differs, or changes over time, people may be familiar with different versions. If you were a reader of magazines in the 60s, you'd be very familiar with "Martin Luther King Jr." without a comma; letting sources vote on which names we keep commas in was never a good or accepted idea. Dicklyon (talk) 16:50, 27 September 2017 (UTC) Yeah, that's a WP:POVFORK, of someone trying to import WP:AT material into WP:MOS where it doesn't belong. MOS's own "consistent in reliable sources" wording was the product of long compromise (and appears in the main MOS, too, which trumps all MoS subpages, including MOSPN one, so no you couldn't have used it to wikilawyer, Randy). There's something to be said for retaining a note that proper names are often a source of conflict to avoid, but it has nothing at all to do with trying to bend WP:COMMONNAME (which is about the choice between, e.g., David Johansen versus Buster Poindexter) to seem as if applicable to style trivia. There's a decade+ consensus that is not the case. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼ 07:36, 28 September 2017 (UTC) So you're not really suggesting a merge, because the core sentence of the guideline which would be merged is Misplaced Pages does not seek to judge such rival claims, but as a general rule uses the name which is likely to be most familiar to readers of English. This is not redundant as it partially contradicts the 'consistency' guideline language, which could not have arrived from true consensus or compromise because it gives no ground to commonsense. The sentence above does, and it allows room for some capitalization if an upper-case name is more familiar to readers of English than a lower-case name, even if it is not consistently applied. If this is really a merge proposal you'd agree that the core language from the page would be kept in a merge, and that would be the "most familiar" phrasing. I don't think that's asking for too much when a merge is suggested, that the core of the merged page is kept when the merge is completed. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:28, 28 September 2017 (UTC) Randy, the "familiar" bit there is very clearly in the context of choosing between proper names; that's well covered already in WP:AT, and a merge should be careful to not let it appear to be a styling issue. If you go back to where Kotniski inserted that language in 2009, he replaced a sentence that tried to distinguish between the styling and name choice issues that are mixed on this page: "Therefore, in addition to setting certain rules and standards, this style page is meant to aid the process of finding compromise when a name conflict arises." Such changes have received little attention, as evidenced by the very low edit rate over the years (about one edit per month, which is way low for a style guideline page). So it's not surprising that it's out of sync with mainstream style guidelines, at least in how it conflates naming and style issues. Dicklyon (talk) 18:20, 28 September 2017 (UTC) Yep, one of the problems we had for a long time was "PoV-forking" of the same underlying guidance between WP:AT and the various naming conventions versus the overlapping material in MoS pages. That's been almost entirely cleaned up down to the subtopical level (e.g. WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS, and WP:NCFAUNA + WP:NCFLORA and MOS:LIFE). We just missed a spot. The only other such conflict I'm aware of is between WP:NCCOMICS and MOS:COMICS (the latter of which similarly contains some NC material it shouldn't have in it); that one has been flagged for cleanup already. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼ 23:27, 28 September 2017 (UTC) PS: The "Misplaced Pages does not seek to judge such rival claims" wording is correct, but the "as a general rule uses the name which ..." stuff is out-of-scope for MoS. That's a WP:AT matter. MoS, where it intersects with names, is about stylization of them, and the consistent rule across WP:MOS, MOS:CAPS, MOS:TM, MOS:TITLES, etc., is to not apply stylization except when it's used with remarkable consistency in reliable sources. This is what keeps our articles readable, and is why Pink (singer) doesn't read "P!NK's third album, TRy THis ..."; but also why Deadmau5 doesn't use "Deadmaus", a spelling barely used in sources even when you search for it specifically — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼ 23:36, 28 September 2017 (UTC) Of course those styling examples aren't included ('Pink' is the most familiar name for 'P!nk' in English, and whatever that 'Try This' styling is the album would still be at 'Try This' as its most familiar name) The 'most familiar' terminology is for titles, and in this guideline as well as the comics guideline you mentioned (the comics guideline reads "Generally, article naming should indicate what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity,") it gives an established alternate point-of-view to the absolute consistency language that has been the source of much objection. So, concerning this possible merge, who gets to decide on what to merge? The language I point to is a major point of the guideline, and any merger should of course include the defining core of the page which, as Dicklyon has mentioned, has been in place since 2009. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:31, 29 September 2017 (UTC) Re: "Of course those styling examples aren't" and "the album would still be at" – Yes, specifically because we have rules against mimicking marketing stylization. I think you've simply not been here long enough to have observed the number of times we've had to deal with this stuff, especially when it comes to pop culture topics. I'm not going to argue circularly with you any further. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ< 21:24, 30 September 2017 (UTC) You brought up the 'P!nk' example, and I only answered that it's not the most familiar name in English. My main concern is capitalization, not minor style points. You have yet to answer my questions of who gets to merge the pages. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:02, 1 October 2017 (UTC) The question does not compute on a wiki. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ< 22:41, 1 October 2017 (UTC) Uh, okay? WP:MERGE. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:44, 1 October 2017 (UTC) And? I think there's just a failure to communicate here. There isn't a contest for "who gets to merge the pages". It's just work to do that someone will step up to do (unless there's a consensus against the idea). If they do a crappy job, others will fix it. The wiki way, as usual. One can actually request a third party do the merge, in a section at WP:PM, but it seems rarely used other than for settling long-running content flamewars, or to deal with technically difficult stuff that someone is having trouble implementing. That's actually probably a bad idea in this case, since a PM respondent isn't likely to have the in situ experience to detect wording conflicts across various MoS pages, and AT vs. MOS scope problems. Anyway, this discussion has already been listed at PM, in the section for announcing discussions for people to comment on. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ< 01:12, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Relevant but long discussion about who will do the merge if this is merged, relevant sentences to merge, why naming conventions are out-of-scope for MoS (it's WP:AT material), and how merging works:

"Most familiar" is a title selection guideline, not a styling guideline. Many terms are familiar to people by virtue of their appearance in titles, headings, signs, etc., where caps are common, yet are commonly lowercased in running text, which is the indication that sources aren't treating them as proper names. Similarly, when comma styling differs, or changes over time, people may be familiar with different versions. If you were a reader of magazines in the 60s, you'd be very familiar with "Martin Luther King Jr." without a comma; letting sources vote on which names we keep commas in was never a good or accepted idea. Dicklyon (talk) 16:50, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, that's a WP:POVFORK, of someone trying to import WP:AT material into WP:MOS where it doesn't belong. MOS's own "consistent in reliable sources" wording was the product of long compromise (and appears in the main MOS, too, which trumps all MoS subpages, including MOSPN one, so no you couldn't have used it to wikilawyer, Randy). There's something to be said for retaining a note that proper names are often a source of conflict to avoid, but it has nothing at all to do with trying to bend WP:COMMONNAME (which is about the choice between, e.g., David Johansen versus Buster Poindexter) to seem as if applicable to style trivia. There's a decade+ consensus that is not the case. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼ 07:36, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

So you're not really suggesting a merge, because the core sentence of the guideline which would be merged is Misplaced Pages does not seek to judge such rival claims, but as a general rule uses the name which is likely to be most familiar to readers of English. This is not redundant as it partially contradicts the 'consistency' guideline language, which could not have arrived from true consensus or compromise because it gives no ground to commonsense. The sentence above does, and it allows room for some capitalization if an upper-case name is more familiar to readers of English than a lower-case name, even if it is not consistently applied. If this is really a merge proposal you'd agree that the core language from the page would be kept in a merge, and that would be the "most familiar" phrasing. I don't think that's asking for too much when a merge is suggested, that the core of the merged page is kept when the merge is completed. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:28, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Randy, the "familiar" bit there is very clearly in the context of choosing between proper names; that's well covered already in WP:AT, and a merge should be careful to not let it appear to be a styling issue. If you go back to where Kotniski inserted that language in 2009, he replaced a sentence that tried to distinguish between the styling and name choice issues that are mixed on this page: "Therefore, in addition to setting certain rules and standards, this style page is meant to aid the process of finding compromise when a name conflict arises." Such changes have received little attention, as evidenced by the very low edit rate over the years (about one edit per month, which is way low for a style guideline page). So it's not surprising that it's out of sync with mainstream style guidelines, at least in how it conflates naming and style issues. Dicklyon (talk) 18:20, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Yep, one of the problems we had for a long time was "PoV-forking" of the same underlying guidance between WP:AT and the various naming conventions versus the overlapping material in MoS pages. That's been almost entirely cleaned up down to the subtopical level (e.g. WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS, and WP:NCFAUNA + WP:NCFLORA and MOS:LIFE). We just missed a spot. The only other such conflict I'm aware of is between WP:NCCOMICS and MOS:COMICS (the latter of which similarly contains some NC material it shouldn't have in it); that one has been flagged for cleanup already. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼ 23:27, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

PS: The "Misplaced Pages does not seek to judge such rival claims" wording is correct, but the "as a general rule uses the name which ..." stuff is out-of-scope for MoS. That's a WP:AT matter. MoS, where it intersects with names, is about stylization of them, and the consistent rule across WP:MOS, MOS:CAPS, MOS:TM, MOS:TITLES, etc., is to not apply stylization except when it's used with remarkable consistency in reliable sources. This is what keeps our articles readable, and is why Pink (singer) doesn't read "P!NK's third album, TRy THis ..."; but also why Deadmau5 doesn't use "Deadmaus", a spelling barely used in sources even when you search for it specifically — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼ 23:36, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Of course those styling examples aren't included ('Pink' is the most familiar name for 'P!nk' in English, and whatever that 'Try This' styling is the album would still be at 'Try This' as its most familiar name) The 'most familiar' terminology is for titles, and in this guideline as well as the comics guideline you mentioned (the comics guideline reads "Generally, article naming should indicate what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity,") it gives an established alternate point-of-view to the absolute consistency language that has been the source of much objection. So, concerning this possible merge, who gets to decide on what to merge? The language I point to is a major point of the guideline, and any merger should of course include the defining core of the page which, as Dicklyon has mentioned, has been in place since 2009. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:31, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Re: "Of course those styling examples aren't" and "the album would still be at" – Yes, specifically because we have rules against mimicking marketing stylization. I think you've simply not been here long enough to have observed the number of times we've had to deal with this stuff, especially when it comes to pop culture topics. I'm not going to argue circularly with you any further. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ< 21:24, 30 September 2017 (UTC)

You brought up the 'P!nk' example, and I only answered that it's not the most familiar name in English. My main concern is capitalization, not minor style points. You have yet to answer my questions of who gets to merge the pages. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:02, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

The question does not compute on a wiki. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ< 22:41, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Uh, okay? WP:MERGE. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:44, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

And? I think there's just a failure to communicate here. There isn't a contest for "who gets to merge the pages". It's just work to do that someone will step up to do (unless there's a consensus against the idea). If they do a crappy job, others will fix it. The wiki way, as usual. One can actually request a third party do the merge, in a section at WP:PM, but it seems rarely used other than for settling long-running content flamewars, or to deal with technically difficult stuff that someone is having trouble implementing. That's actually probably a bad idea in this case, since a PM respondent isn't likely to have the in situ experience to detect wording conflicts across various MoS pages, and AT vs. MOS scope problems. Anyway, this discussion has already been listed at PM, in the section for announcing discussions for people to comment on. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ< 01:12, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Strong support – Apparently I used to know of WP:PN, as I editted it a few times in 2011 and 2012, but it had escaped my memory recently. It's an irrelevant out-of-sync outlier that needs to be brought into the mainstream in a compatible way. Thanks for working on such things, S. Dicklyon (talk) 18:26, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
- Another is the long-overdue merge-and-cleanup of advice on titles of works; I catalogued all the redundant sections, and we're using a template to identify where they all are but at some point actually need to do the cleanup. It's just going to be headache-inducing. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼ 23:27, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
I shall support this, and remind whoever has the responsibility of effecting it to ensure the appropriate shortcuts are transferred ... I am sure you will have considered this already, though.
–Sb2001 22:42, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
Will re-ping WP:VPPOL for more input. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ< 10:14, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Support in concept... however I share the concern that we might lose some important bits of language in the merger. Let's not rush into things. The old language needs to be discussed, and consensus reached on the new language, before the merger takes place. Blueboar (talk) 19:18, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Support in concept – it seems workable. I don't understand Randy's objection. The language "as a general rule uses the name which is likely to be most familiar to readers of English" is enshrined in the general naming WP:CRITERIA for recognizability already. Is he thinking that this language will help him argue for caps on things he likes that way even though sources mostly don't, like civil rights movement and Homestead strike? Hard to see how this is going to affect the stuff he argues against MOS:CAPS about. Dicklyon (talk) 04:42, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
Support. When I came across the "Stong oppose" at the top, I though: "That has to be Randy Kryn". Why did I think that, Randy? Tony (talk) 06:07, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment, appreciated. I don't know why you thought it, but if it has anything to do with my interest in saving the long-time language which exists in the page suggested for merging, the common sense language which asks Wikipedians to try to use names most familiar to readers, thanks again. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:04, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Memes and aphorisms as titles

Moved to Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Titles#Memes and aphorisms as titles

Chicken and egg

These edits concern me... some of them may support Talk:The Players Championship#Requested move 23 November 2017 which the editor proposed. Not cricket if so, surely. Andrewa (talk) 19:35, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

"Deputy Mayor of X" but "a deputy mayor"

Could someone please check Mayor of New York#Deputy mayors: It looks to me like there should be more caps in this section. However, I'm not sufficiently confident to make those changes, especially since there are several. DavidMCEddy (talk) 02:59, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

My feeling on this is "Fuleihan is first deputy mayor" but "Deputy Mayor Fuleihan". The article is now the former. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:16, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

RfC on capital letters, etc., in Russian train station article titles

FYI – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)#RfC: Russian railway line article titles.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ< 04:31, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Academic titles

Should the academic titles like "assistant professor" and "associate professor" be written with capital letters? Ali Pirhayati (talk) 11:34, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

@Pirhayati: Generally no in Misplaced Pages, as explained at MOS:JOBTITLES. If used before a name as part of the name, it would be "Professor Smith said ..." or "Assistant Professor Smith said ...", but "Smith, an assistant professor at Jones University, said ...". Many academics and some university style guides capitalize these words and others because they are so important in their context (see WP:SPECIALSTYLE), but Misplaced Pages doesn't. Thank you. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 18:10, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm still confused on difference between sc and sc2 templates

Is there a preference for lexical sets to be using {{sc}}, as in GOAT, or {{sc2}}, as in GOAT. I'm still a bit confused when do use one vs the other, but it seems that there has been a recent push to use the latter. Does one use the latter so the capitalization is preserved when copy/pasting? Hope this is the right place to ask. Umimmak (talk) 00:24, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

RfC: Capitalisation of traditional game/sports terminology

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Should names of traditional games and sports, and of game-play items and other terminology associated with them, be capitalized?
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ< 09:12, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Comments on game/sport capitals

No, for reasons detailed in the "Extended discussion" section. Summary: They are not proper names (it's "poker", "triathlon", "pool cue", not "Poker", "Triathlon", "Pool Cue"), and sources do not consistently capitalize them. RfC opened because a mostly-ignored RM's failure to come to consensus led directly to pro-capitals editwarring almost immediately, and that's not okay. We should have a sentence or two about this in MOS:CAPS, because this not the first or last time that over-capitalization in relation to sports and games has been and will be an issue. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ< 09:12, 1 January 2018 (UTC)
Strong support of common and familiar names for traditional games. SMcCandlish wanted to lower-case all of the traditional chess moves (i.e. King's Gambit to king's gambit. Seriously?). He also wanted to change the name of The Open Championship, probably the most iconic name in sports. SMc, you are wonderful at working on and polishing policy, but in the naming of names, you have, as I've explained on your talk page, a blind-spot to common names and most familiar names. Randy Kryn (talk) 01:16, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
I've never in my life encountered the argument that we should capitalize something because it's familiar or common. This is certainly not found in any style guide, much less ours. And this has nothing to do with chess openings; see #Chess openings below. Whether WP:THE applies to a particular article has nothing to do with MOS:CAPS, and our guidelines apply regardless who seeks to apply or evade them. Please stop thrashing, and ad hominem personalizing, in style discussions you are not correctly following. I'll take this up at your talk page. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ< 07:25, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
Please note that just before SmCCandlish wrote the above he added a section to the bottom addressing my concern about changing the names of chess moves (then pointing to it as if it was there all along, asking me not to thrash something, then running off to my talk page to put up a you're-a-bad-editor lecture). Would have been a more accurate and better good-faith edit to kindly thank me for pointing out the chess move concern and for inspiring him to clarify it. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:50, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
No, reserve caps for proper names like in every other part of en.w. Not sure why Randy K wants to cap names of "traditional games" (dominoes, chess, and checkers?) when they are not proper names. Dicklyon (talk) 01:24, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

The problem is that aficionados think these words ARE proper names (since THEY use them as such)... so it might help to explain in more detail why they are not. Blueboar (talk) 01:42, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. I think SMcCandlish has provided a detailed explanation. I was mostly responding to the Randy who (if I understand him) argues to cap them even without claiming they are proper names. We usually look to sources, and treat as proper names those terms that are consistently capped in sources; terms that are mixed we lowercase; there is no definitive numerical criterion distinguishing these realms, but certainly for nine men's morris (one of the discussions that prompted this) the sources support lowercase on all the game name variants; books such as this one that use it both ways make it clear that caps are often for titles and headings even when use in sentences is lowercase, indicating not a proper name. And books like this one make it clear that editors who work to decide which ones to cap don't cap this one, even when they do cap Go. Dicklyon (talk) 05:11, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

You misunderstand and are mischaracterizing my position. Of course I don't want to capitalize chess, or dominoes, or such. But the problem here is that McClandish worded this question so open-ended that he may plan to use it as a run-around to lower-case such names as King's Gambit (he wants to lower-case all chess moves) (oh, I see he took that off-the-table after I pointed out that this RfC could have affected them, I'll let my comments here stand in order to assure that things like that are truly left alone), and several others (he "lost" at The Player's Championship which was his stated stepping-stone to change one of the most iconic names in sports, The Open Championship). So editors, please read the wording of this "RfC" carefully, see that it is open-ended, and that red-herrings such as me wanting to capitalize 'chess' or 'dominoes' may be laid in the path of me also pointing out that lower-casing some of the types of things he wants to lower-case actually harms the encyclopedia and its public credibility. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:18, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Support lowercase for un-trademarked games. If there are any pro-caps arguments that go beyond "I don't like it", I'm keen to hear them. If any exceptional cases exist, than an overwhelming majority of sources will bear that out. Primergrey (talk) 06:35, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
No, per Primergrey. We need to avoid WP:SSFs as much as possible. James (/_contribs) 15:24, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
Question. What is the purpose of this RfC? (To make no change to MoS, to make no clarification of MoS, while at same time somehow hand carte blanche to SMcClandish to lowercase any articles he pleases, without consensus at respective article Talks?!) --IHTS (talk) 00:15, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Extended discussion of game/sport capitals

Background, and a case for "no": A "local consensus" at a handful of game-related articles has been imposing capitalization of the names of, and terms related to, traditional games (folk games and sports, not trademarked commercial ones).

Some examples:

Nine Men's Morris, Twelve Men's Morris, and some related games are at capitalized titles, and using capital letters in the text in (a recent RM drew almost no commentary and closed with no consensus). A copy-paste from the lead of the current version one: "The game is also known as Nine Man Morris, Mill, Mills, The Mill Game, Merels, Merrills, Merelles, Marelles, Morelles and Ninepenny Marl in English. The game has also been called Cowboy Checkers ..." The "morris" is this is not the name Morris/Maurice, nor (as in Morris dancing) an alternative spelling of Moorish, but is just a corruption of Latin merellus, 'gamepiece'. The fact that it looks like the name Morris is pure coincidence, and RS do not generally treat it as a proper name , , , , , , , and many others. Lower case is used even in sources that go back a century (when capitalization was much more common for such things) . Shakespeare used lower case, in an era when capitalization for signification was even more common . Some capitalization can be found in things that aren't guidebooks (which, as a class, tend to capitalize everything they have an entry about – this was a central point in the "capitalization of common names of species" RfC, which concluded for lowercase), e.g. . It is pretty common. But works of all sorts use lowercase. No serious claim can be made that RS are consistently using upper case, even within a particular genre or field of writing. Not even game guidebooks, the most likely to capitalize . Tellingly, even a German source gives it in lower-case (but with the "German-hyphen"), despite German being prone to capitalizing nouns and noun phrases .
Morabaraba was capitalizing pretty much every game-related word, including non-English terms in languages that don't even use capitalization that way. My MOS:CAPS cleanup of this was reverted with a "local consensus" claim, yet there is no such consensus in evidence, and it would have to be very strong, i.e. based on overwhelming consistency of capitalization in sources. Any skim of games-related sources shows widely mixed usage. Guidebooks capitalize often (see WP:NOT#GUIDE), nor do numerous other sources (just from the first page of Google Books results: , , , . Clearly, the RS do not consistently treat this as a proper name, regardless of whether they are journalism, fiction, academic works, or guidebooks. Some cases of capitalization of this term are actually a different use, a cultural one.
Articles on various other obscure sports and games were also capitalizing when initially written, but have been lower-cased since then (e.g. Carrom, which was full of "Carrom", "Karrom", "Queen", "Striker", "Point Carrom", etc. . Same story at Jeu provençal, which had "Boule", "Boules", "Bocce", "Volo", "Landing", "Pétanque", etc. . There has been no controversy about them being lower-cased properly, for years (and many already were, of course), until it reached nine men's morris and the related game morabaraba (similar in many ways to carrom, though a strategy not physical-skill game). Virtually all of our articles on folk games and traditional sports are lowercase for both game name and terms like equipment names.

On the other hand, about 95% of our material on traditional sports and games is in lower-case (we do not play, or write about, Football on a Football Pitch or Football Field, nor Chess on a Chess Board). Compare the above-quoted lead sentence to this one from another article: "Baseball pocket billiards or baseball pool (sometimes, in context, referred to simply as baseball) is a pocket billiards (pool) game ...." The capitalization happening at a few games and sports articles appears to be simply because of a specialized-style fallacy (i.e. "the rulebooks I like use capitals, so WP has to as well"), or perhaps a misunderstanding of how MoS is applied, such as the common-style fallacy, that we use whatever 50.01% of the sources prefer). Regardless, it's just that no one's gotten around to lower-casing them yet due to topic obscurity, and this has generated a WP:VESTED sense of down-to-the-character control among a few editors actually watchlisting this small number of articles.

I'm obviously making a pro-lowercase argument here, based on our standard of not applying capitals (or any other style variation) unless mainstream RS do so with near uniformity. We apply this standard to everything, including camelcase, lower-case trademarks, substitutions of numerals or other symbols for letters and words, and so on, and it's applied dozens of times per week at WP:RM to down-case extraneous capitalization. I'm using RfC at this time because of the failure this week of RfC to resolve a similar case, which then led directly to editwarring about the matter at another article. I do not believe a lone RM that was mostly ignored can be used as the basis to try to prevent guideline-compliance copyedits even at that article much less across all games articles, especially against guideline compliance and WP:CONSISTENCY policy.

But someone else may want to make a pro-caps argument here. Is there some kind of special exception to make for morris-type games? For all games? If so, on what basis?
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ< 09:12, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Please notify all of the appropriate projects, such as chess, gaming, games, sports, etc. of this discussion. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 01:22, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
Make sure to notify at Talk:Go (game). --IHTS (talk) 02:46, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
- RfCs run for an entire month if necessary, and this has already been "advertised" WP:VPPOL. The purpose of RfC is is to get broad not single-minded editorial input. Why on earth would I go WP:CANVASSING every game-related page to gin up a bloc-vote of specialized-style fallacy votes? If you notify topically-specific pages, do so neutrally per, and stop blatantly misrepresenting this RfC as having anthing to do with chess openings.
  I'm still waiting for your pro-capitalization argument, especially since this RfC only exists because of your pro-capitalization editwarring. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ< 07:10, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
  - What is application of your arguments re Go (game)? (Traditional game; RSs are split approx 50–50 according to Talk:Go (game) discussions including archived discussions; the argument accounting for consensus if I'm not mistaken is that editors at the page don't want readers to confuse the game name w/ the verb. Do your principles allow for argument like that to defeat your argument what is right or wrong for WP re lowercase/uppercase? And why haven't you applied your principles there, a major litmus test case, rather than picking less trafficked Nine Men's, & no-brainers like "baseball"? Oh, knock off w/ personal stuff, your behavior to lowercase Twelve Men's at a different article immediately after RfC closure denying lowercase for Nine Men's was rather inappropriate & underhanded. And I'm not sure why your past extremist views re "queen's gambit" have changed . There are problems w/ this RfC, lack of definition what is different from MoS currently, for example. Lack of definition when a source is considered "specialist" & ignorable, versus "RS" & not. Lack of clarity beyond ambiguity in current MoS what is "preponderance". Lack of clarity where apparently you'll think you have authority to make game names lowercase, & if objected based on most sources, deny those sources are true RS. Those issues s/n be defined here, this discussion is reliant on existing definitions elsewhere, which need to be brought in here rather than indirectly implied. Any conclusion from abstract discussion can lead to much damage. I want to hear your take not only on go, but Chinese Checkers, Alice Chess, Grand Chess, Double Chess, and Onyx (game).) --IHTS (talk) 23:16, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
Interestingly, the more well-known games all seem to be lowercase. It may simply be that a dearth of traffic has left the more obscure games out of line with MOS guidelines. Primergrey (talk) 07:56, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Chess openings are off-topic

Refactored this FUD out of the comments section:

For context & perspective, here are earlier SMcCandlish lowercase discussions:
Talk:Queen's Gambit#Contested move request (failed request from 2007, initially submitted as uncontested)

WikiProject_Chess/Archive_26#upper_and_lower_case (includes extensive arguments re chess terms)

--IHTS (talk) 03:45, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

This has nothing whatsover to do with chess openings; no one said anything about them other than you and Randy. While it is actually easy to find a handful of lower-case examples in RS, including ones specifically about chess, for any random thing listed in Category:Chess openings, as well as strangely mixed casing like "Queen's gambit" and "poisoned Pawn variation" (examples, in no particular order: , , , , , , , , etc.), it's clear from both a cursory and an in-depth examination that chess openings are in fact capitalized with almost uniform consistency in reliable sources, and this is our standard. (Names of non-trademarked games and sports, and the equipment used in them are not, and fail that standard.)

Chess openings are basically creative works in a sense, a cerebral version of, say, the McTwist in skateboarding, the Lutz in figure skating, and Pardo's Push in aerial combat. Most of them are named after specific individuals.

What this RfC does have to do with is over-capitalizing things like "Chess", "Nine-ball", "Gin Rummy", and "Baseball Bat".
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ< 07:10, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Glad to see you've changed your position on the chess moves and added this after I pointed that out. It's things like that which concern me. Of course 'chess' and most others should be lower-cased (Baseball Bat is actually upper-cased? that's a weird one ), so no, we don't have as big a difference as you are imagining. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:09, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

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