It was birds *and* mammals, Toby. Run your eye back over the lengthy discussions two months ago. Just about any post titled "A plea for sanity ..." and signed by me will do as a starting point, but there are lots of others. Or simply recall that the entire discussion began when I'd just spent two full days researching and writing entries on the hopping mice, only to have them buggerised about by people who, despite meaning only the best, had made no contribution to them at all.
See http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Spinifex_Hopping_Mouse for details.
By the way, the agreed convention is actually nice and simple. Indeed, it simply follows the same convention that applies to everything else. (Everything? Everything I can think of, at any rate.)
If the phrase is normally capitalised, then it is always capitalised. For example:
King George: page title = "King George" in-text = "King George".
(OK, we have some arcane naming convention on kings and queens that I don't fully understand, so it winds up as "George of the United Kingdon" or something, but I'll look that up if and when I need to know it, or just ask someone who works on kings and queens all the time - but you get what I mean: we simply preserve the normal capitalisation)
Spinifex Hopping Mouse: Page title = "Spinifex Hopping Mouse" in-text = Spinifex Hopping Mouse"
Ford Mustang: page title = "Ford Mustang" in-text = "Ford Mustang"
equally, if the phrase is normally NOT capitalised, then it is always lower case (bar at the start of a sentence, of course):
corn grower: page title = "corn grower" (actually rendered as "Corn grower" by the software, but that can't be helped) in-text = "corn grower"
New Zealand wrens (not a particular species, a group of six different species): page title = "New Zealand wren" in-text = New Zealand wrens:
sports cars: page title = "sports car" in-text = "sports cars"
The executive summary: simply use the correct capitalisation whenever you use the phrase and you will rarely go wrong.
Tony
(Tannin)
On 6/4/03 11:05 AM, "Tony Wilson" list@redhill.net.au wrote:
The executive summary: simply use the correct capitalisation whenever you use the phrase and you will rarely go wrong.
Good thing there's no dispute on what the correct capitalization is.
Cunctator,
Well, Tannin has laid down the law (and changed lots of articles) ;
Fred
From: The Cunctator cunctator@kband.com Reply-To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 12:12:47 -0400 To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] A clarificaton for Toby
On 6/4/03 11:05 AM, "Tony Wilson" list@redhill.net.au wrote:
The executive summary: simply use the correct capitalisation whenever you use the phrase and you will rarely go wrong.
Good thing there's no dispute on what the correct capitalization is.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Tannin wrote:
It was birds *and* mammals, Toby. Run your eye back over the lengthy discussions two months ago. Just about any post titled "A plea for sanity ..." and signed by me will do as a starting point, but there are lots of others. Or simply recall that the entire discussion began when I'd just spent two full days researching and writing entries on the hopping mice, only to have them buggerised about by people who, despite meaning only the best, had made no contribution to them at all.
The discussion on the mailing list made no reference to hopping-mice. In any case, I just read it all, and it focussed on birds, like I said. The official compromise by mav referred to both birds and mammals: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-April/002848.html, but then mav almost immediately back-pedalled to just birds: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-April/002884.html. (Note that he remained agnostic on mammals, not anti-capitalisation as had been his earlier position. And I speak only of what mav wrote on the mailing list, not what he wrote elsewhere or believes now.)
See http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Spinifex_Hopping_Mouse for details.
This is a helpful citation, thanks.
It might be useful to give a huge list of mammal books with capitalisation, similar to the huge list of bird books (the mammal books cited have been few). For my part, seeing that mav hasn't continued any objections on that page is sufficient for me to accept that a consensus was reached even for mammals, among those that work on these articles.
By the way, the agreed convention is actually nice and simple. Indeed, it simply follows the same convention that applies to everything else. If the phrase is normally capitalised, then it is always capitalised.
Sure, of course. So is it normally capitalised? That's what's disputed. Perhaps you're responding to an earlier post of mine where I said that this discussion was more than style, it was a naming convention. That's because the style choice (whether to capitalise in text) *affected* the naming convention. That's what makes this issue: (A) important; (B) worthy of writing up on a naming conventions page.
I'd like to point out, Tannin, that I'm *not* arguing against capitalisation. But you need to document the discussions, or it'll come up again and again.
-- Toby