User talk:Robinvp11

See book n-gram stats. Dicklyon (talk) 00:41, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The reason "Siege" has been capitalised is because that aligns with the Article Title. Which appears to be standard practice within Wikipedia, with the exception of the articles you have been editing eg "Siege of Sevastopol" has always been "Siege" until you changed it.

Can you confirm precisely which Wikipedia standard you are following before making these edits, it will save a lot of back and forth. Robinvp11 (talk) 09:43, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Per WP:AT, we use sentence case in article titles. The capitalisation of siege in the article title Siege of Carlisle (December 1745) does not ipso facto mean that we should cap siege in prose. Capitalisation is a matter for MOS:CAPS and whether a name is consistently capped in prose in sources. The ngram shows a majority for siege of Carlisle, indicating that we should not be capping siege in prose. As to other articles, I have not seen a name, siege of X, where siege is consistently capped in sources. However, if such a case is identified, then it would be capped in prose for that article. Cinderella157 (talk) 23:00, 16 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See WT:MOSCAPS#Besieged, a long-running discussion (mostly a monologue) about this wrong idea. Dicklyon (talk) 23:34, 17 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to make a big thing of this, and apologies if I've missed a prior explanation, but as requested above, could you indicate precisely which Wikipedia convention is being used to justify these changes?

Wikipedia also says we should be consistent and until you changed them, the convention appears to have been to capitalise the article title eg The Siege of Malta etc. So I think its reasonable to ask why, and the discussion you've linked to doesn't help. Robinvp11 (talk) 09:51, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As I said above and elsewhere, this isn't a huge problem, but it does speak to a broader issue with how these changes are made. This discussion over capitalisation is simply a representation of that issue.

We are proceeding as if this is a settled case, which it quite clearly is not, since by your own estimates, you've now edited over 400 articles to make this "correction". That being too, it seems curious there is a specific Wikipedia guideline that says its wrong, so I'd like to see it. I have diligently read the various links sent to me, and I can't easily identify it.

If the correction is being driven by "correct grammar", then ok but that's very far from being Wikipedia-mandated, and again, its not a hard and fast.

I was previously under the impression that notwithstanding the "no capitalisation in prose" rule above, the opening had to be the same as the article title eg The Siege of York should begin "Siege Of York'. Apparently this isn't the case, which is fine.

What stops me (for example) from arguing history books generally say "Siege of York" in the index, not "The Siege of York", as does the EB and other online resources, so I'm going to remove "The" from the title and change it to "Siege of York". Based on this conversation, it's not clear how anyone could object. It might be a unilateral decision but it complies with Wikipedia norms and is grammatically correct. Robinvp11 (talk) 14:59, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know where you got those misapprehensions. There's nothing in guidelines to suggest capping the title in the bold part of the lead if it's not sentence-initial or a proper name/noun. If you find examples of where that's done, let's look at them, and maybe fix them. Dicklyon (talk) 17:20, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I clicked "Random article" 20 times, and found just this one that illustrates something like what I'm talking about: List of artillery video games. See what you can find. Dicklyon (talk) 17:24, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well tbf, I'm not the only person objecting to your edits, am I?

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Persistent, long-term battleground behavior from multiple editors at capitalization RMs Robinvp11 (talk) 19:46, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm familiar with that thread, yes. See if you can find an edit of mine that people are objecting to. It's harder than it looks. Dicklyon (talk) 03:23, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is it possible you could address this question, which I've now asked several times ie That being so, it seems curious there is a specific Wikipedia guideline that says its wrong, so I'd like to see it. I have diligently read the various links sent to me, and I can't easily identify it. Robinvp11 (talk) 20:19, 18 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My position on "The siege of" has been in the open discussion I pointed you at for many months, and there have been no objections or challenges to it. I don't know of anything more specific than the things I pointed you at already. In particular, we use sentence case titles and we avoid unnecessary capitalization, which should be enough. Dicklyon (talk) 02:45, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was previously under the impression that notwithstanding the "no capitalisation in prose" rule above, the opening had to be the same as the article title. Article titles use sentence case, meaning that the first word in the title is capitalised regardless of whether it is a "proper noun" or not. This means that the appropriate capitalisation of the first word in the article title phase (article name) in prose is not determined by the article title alone - eg at Insurgency in the northern Gaza Strip the opening sentence reads: The 'insurgency in the northern Gaza Strip was a series of armed engagements ... [emphasis added]. In making a link, or writing the first sentence of the lead, we should always question the capitalisation of the first letter in the name phase. Sometimes the answer is obvious (eg color or Russian invasion of Ukraine) but in cases like this, we might think the answer obvious but our perceptions might well be wrong when compared with usage in source - ie what MOS:CAPS tells us to do to determine if it is necessary to cap a word or phrase in prose. Hope this gives more clarity. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:46, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have tried to answer the question you asked as I have understood it. I am sorry if I have misunderstood it. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:06, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I searched up some more examples where the lead opens "The ..." with lowercase bold title:

• Gmina
• Administrative divisions of Iran
• Taxonomy of the Gastropoda (Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005)
• Cantons of France
• Guitar
• History of Bangladesh (1971–present)
• Coat of arms of Portugal
• Ocean
• Districts of England
• Geology of Ireland
• Chair (officer)
• Euro

I haven't found any more examples of ones that are over-capitalized, but I know some exist. Dicklyon (talk) 03:00, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here I finally found one that should probably be lowercase: The Western is a genre...". However, it might be controversial, as it's half capped in sources and in previous discussion some editors wanted to treat the genre as a proper name, so I won't touch that one. Rather unlike the one you capped. Dicklyon (talk) 03:17, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This conversation isn't going anywhere, and seems to be becoming unnecessarily contentious. I don't appreciate the failure to answer direct questions, no matter how times I ask, to move the topic onto areas I haven't expressed any interest in, or the tone creeping into these comments.

Despite various references to Wikipedia practice (not just in this conversation, but elsewhere), the whole issue of Capitalisation is clearly not settled, as evidenced by the ongoing ANI.

That being so, while I'm really clear on what you think, I don't need to be persuaded, and until this ANI is settled, your interpretation is exactly that. I'm not going to respond to any further comments on this thread pending that resolution and I'd appreciate your compliance with that. Thanks in advance. Robinvp11 (talk) 08:52, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, this misconception of yours is unrelated to what's happening at ANI. I don't think anyone there would agree that we copy titles into the lead and blindly capitalize even things that are not sentence initial. I showed you numerous examples of standard practice not doing that, and pointed out that fixing the "siege" thing has been discussed openly for months in a page that people on both sides of the ANI dispute read regularly, and nobody is taking the funny position that you are. I have answered that I don't know a specific guideline addressing exactly this confusion; maybe there should be, as it does come up now and then. Dicklyon (talk) 15:46, 19 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Read wp:npa and wp:bludgeon. Slatersteven (talk) 12:40, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies, I shouldn't have said that. I do think you might be less dismissive in your responses but that's no excuse. Robinvp11 (talk) 12:42, 26 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]