Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Animals/Draft capitalization guidelines

Suggest sentence case for primates

I am fine with everything you are doing and will leave comments on the finer points that I think need to be addressed (as needed). However, as one of the key contributors to the WP:PRIMATES, I vote to standardize with the rest of the mammals and use sentence case. None of the sources I work with regularly use upper case, and the experts I have worked with have questioned our use of upper case for primates. – VisionHolder « talk » 06:51, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree, though I cannot claim to have worked with experts. Personally, I would recommend sentence case for all common names, as I hate seeing upper case showing up in the middle of sentences for reasons that only the experts and insiders can figure out. Among other things, upper case breaks the flow of reading. I think the current guidelines are perfectly clear until you get to (paraphrasing) "except when a project doesn't feel like it." Ideally we should just set guidelines and stick to them. Since we aren't likely to get consensus across the board, a table showing the specifics is, I think, the next best thing. Donlammers (talk) 13:32, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

What's the latest, not only on the draft, but also on the particular issue of primate names? I'm getting tired of sticking to the old convention and I'm ready to start using the new one... especially since no one has objected yet. – VisionHolder « talk » 18:55, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Me too, it feels so mickey mouse to be using different conventions for no reason other than the whims of the editors that worked on those pages. As far as I can tell, there is no sourced justification for treating primates differently from other mammals; the arguments all seem to be around practical concerns, such as clarity – is a "brown bear" an Ursus americanus that happens to be brown, or is it a "Brown Bear" (Ursus arctos) etc. IOW, the rationales seem to mostly be along the lines of "what is best" rather than reflecting reliable, english language sources. I think it's pretty clear that Wikipedia should be doing the latter. I suppose I'm being unfair, MSW seems to like title case. But if you do a google scholar search, pretty much the only time the "common" in "Common Chimpanzee" is going to be capitalized it is in the title of an article: [1]. It's pretty simple: we do what reliable sources say. The bird exception seems somewhat justified, but not the primate one. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:49, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Per a formal vote, the naming conventions on WP:PRIMATE have changed to sentence case. – VisionHolder « talk » 20:23, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

So unclear

The guideline is so unclear, I can hardly comment because I haven't a clue what it's saying. The example column is suppose to be an example of article title? Use in prose? What? Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 14:42, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I think we should just all use sentence case, problem solved :) ZooPro 14:55, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

From discussions I've read using sentence case is the widely held view amoung prose writers at FA level. Using sentence case is more or less what WP:CAPS already says anyway. I spent the last month moving many turtle articles to meet the Wiki standard for capitalisation. So I find the timing of wanting to change it in this draft amusing, I don't know if to laugh or cry ;) Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 15:14, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Are you saying that the proposed table is unclear? If so, please help. Feel free to edit it. As for your time spent moving articles, that is precisely why I started this proposal. Your input is very welcome. Settling this might help save many wasted hours in the future. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 15:33, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes the table is unclear. My time spent moving some articles was largely because WP:CAPS didn't exist or hadn't been followed (often the capitalisation was taken from WikiSpecies with a BOT) at the point the articles where created. I don't envisage further moves, unless Wikipedia:CAPS#Organisms or WP:Fauna name changes. Why is the draft being created, what is the real or perceived problem? Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 15:52, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I think your edit to the table headings brought clarity. I do envisage further moves, as well as articles being created without consistency. The real problem seems to be that different groups of animals follow different conventions. This might help define them within Wikipedia. Wikipedia:CAPS#Organisms appears to contradict other guidelines, and the philosophy of Wikipedia. That philosophy, I believe, intends that we are here to report and represent, not to tell the world what should be caps or not. So, this proposal hopes to establish a few things that we can agree upon. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 16:18, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

What other guidelines does Wikipedia:CAPS#Organisms contradict? I'm not aware of any. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 16:25, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, none, directly. But, it doesn't exactly lay down the conventions. Somebody creating a butterfly article might easily use lower case after reading that, regardless of the link to fauna. Actually, I'm rather out of my depth here. I make articles about pies and bridges and such. There are a dozen experts watching this page. Perhaps they should advise one way or the other. Maybe there is no adequate solution. But certainly, there are thousands of articles with inconsistent case with respect to title and prose, new ones will be created incorrectly due to unclear guidelines, and many of us will waste time moving articles incorrectly, (which is exactly what happened to me and why I started this proposal). Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 16:56, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay. I do agree there is much inconsistency between articles. My experience with turtles has been that most of the articles are not maintained, and rarely edited and so are out of date to any guidelines. This makes for a lot of consistency but if someone was willing to update them then there is no problem. The only comments I've encountered is over what is the correct common name rather then what capitalisation a topic. I'm going to update with draft and see if anyone disagrees - and likely they will, but I gather that is the drafts purpose. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 17:44, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Primate example is bad

Using Ruffed lemur as an example isn't a good idea for the primates. Ruffed lemurs are a genus, not a species. Even now, with primates using title case, common names for genera and other groups are given in sentence case, such as "tarsiers", "slow lorises", "lemurs", "gibbons", etc. I can't think of any examples like what you're trying to point out, but ideally we would use Ring-tailed lemur for a title (instead of Ring-tailed Lemur, like it is now) and "ring-tailed lemur" in the text. There may be stray examples of that hidden somewhere in the project, but it would be due to error at this point. – VisionHolder « talk » 21:06, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

So the exception for that group is that genus is somehow different to species, although you don't explain how. Anyway, I'll add a note that primate have exceptions. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 22:42, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

It's not really an exception, just a bad example. Names of groups of animals, even among the birds, are generally sentence case. For the infamous uppercase birds, Bluebird has an uppercase title (but only the first word), and "bluebird" is used throughout the article to name the group of species, in this case a genus. Likewise, primates currently use upper case just like the birds, so pointing to Ruffed lemur wasn't a good example for using sentence case in WP:Primates. Like bluebirds, there are multiple species of ruffed lemur. (Note how I use both terms in lower case.) However, at present, if I want to talk about the Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis) or the Black-and-white Ruffed Lemur (Varecia variegatta), then I use uppercase. My point was that if we switch primates to sentence case (per my recommendation above and several other discussions that I can track down), then the table should show a species example, not a genus. The common name for a genus (or family, etc.) is always sentence case, regardless of whether we're talking about primates, birds, or cephalopods.

On another note, the table is a little redundant for the sub-projects of WP:Mammal. Basically, if we switch to using sentence case for primates, then all WP:Mammal sub-projects except WP:Dog Breeds will be sentence case—a fact that could be stated in the "Remarks" column. – VisionHolder « talk » 23:41, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

More bad examples in the table

Now that I'm looking beyond the primates, I've noticed several problems with the selected examples in the table. Per my comments in the section above, several examples are groups (genera, families, etc.) and not examples of species. Above the table, it explicitly states: "Names of higher categories of animals are always written in sentence case (e.g., kangaroo rat, river martin)." However, the following examples in the table are not species but higher-level categories: Arthropod (phylum), Bee (unranked, between superfamily and family), Jumping spider (family), Blue-ringed octopus (genus), and Freshwater snail (some kind of paraphyletic group).

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the point of the table. I'm looking to it as a guide to help me determine what case (upper or sentence) to use with species articles, while I assume to follow the stated rule about "higher categories" regardless of which animal project I'm working under. Either the table needs better examples that focus on species, or the purpose of the table needs to be clarified. – VisionHolder « talk » 23:58, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I think maybe the mis-understanding is mine. My understanding was that common names was the same whether it was family,genus,species, suborder,super order,subspecies, subfamily etc. Just no difference, except species are the most common. I guess I am missing something. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 00:05, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm re-reading WP:Fauna name. I don't see any mention of differences in taxonomic level. Ah, Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(fauna)#Capitalisation_of_common_names_of_groups. "The common name of a group of species, or an individual creature of indeterminate species, is not capitalised.". Okay, now I understand. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 00:15, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

No problem. If you need help finding examples or have any questions, just ask. I'll try to monitor the status draft. – VisionHolder « talk » 00:18, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

The wording from Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(fauna)#Capitalisation_of_common_names_of_groups confuses me. Is group suppose to mean genus or any loosely defined group? One issue is many species are themselves groups because they have subspecies. Another is they are thought not to have any subspecies and then later someone finds a subspecies and then it changes - to a group. So the captialisation should be changing over time? That seems really bizarre to me. I'm trying too get my head around it. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 00:29, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Welcome to the problems anna and I have faced, I have only recently decided that my new position is to change everything to sentence case, maybe in 10 - 12 months down the track I will put forward a proposal to determine the guidelines and fix the problems once and for all.ZooPro 00:35, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

You can have the same complications with monotypic families, genera, etc. I agree with ZooPro. If groups and species use sentence case, it makes it easier. (Then everything is sentence case.) I feel that if the professionals in the field predominantly use uppercase in the literature, then the editors working in those related projects should follow their example and learn from how they handle things. However, the vast majority of fields use sentence case, which is much easier. The only examples that should give us problems in drawing up these guidelines are the projects that use uppercase. Everything else is easy. Otherwise, we just have to reach a consensus for standardizing some odd projects that adopted uppercase without consensus (e.g. WP:Primates). – VisionHolder « talk » 00:45, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

For this thing about groups being in lower case what about the Cocker Spaniel, it's a group of two type of spaniel, the English and the American. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 01:20, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

WP:Dogs does not appear to formally declare their naming guidelines, nor do they appear to be internally consistent. (Compare several of their dog articles with Gray wolf.) Another problem is that the breeds aren't species. They are all varieties of the domestic dog (the subspecies Canis lupus familiaris). If they are going by the rule of uppercase, I would say "Cocker Spaniel" should be an odd exception and made uppercase because for many people, that is a variety of dog, just as a Beagle is. Again, I don't know why they are using uppercase. This is where experts from that project need to speak up. As for the inconsistency, it would probably be best if full species (such as Gray wolf, Canis lupus) follow the WP:Mammal standard, and dog varieties follow the WP:Dog guidelines (if different). – VisionHolder « talk » 02:19, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

You know... maybe the key with WP:Dogs, since it's a member of WP:Mammal, is to allow all domestic dog varieties to be uppercase (regardless of groups, since they are not species or subspecies), but require all species and and subspecies to follow the guidelines for WP:Mammal. Therefore wolves, foxes, jackals, etc. are treated as sentence case. This, of course, assumes that there is a good reason for using uppercase for domestic dog varieties to begin with. – VisionHolder « talk » 02:26, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Horse breeds

I recently enquired as to the basis of the apparently inconsistent capitalisation at List of horse breeds, where there is Banker Horse, but Blazer horse. Apparently, if the breed is often known as a Blazer, then horse is lower case, and if the identifier horse is always part of the name, they use Banker Horse. But the matter seems to have generated some debate, especially in relation to ponies, amd whether the convention exists outside Wiki is unclear. Kevin McE (talk) 07:43, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Also, the current example in the table is a poor one, because a wild horse is not a breed, it's a type, just like feral horse or draft horse. I agree that these should use sentence case. Actual breeds, on the other hand, such as Thoroughbred, Arabian, Appaloosa and others, should use title case. This is different from what Kevin McE is talking about above, which is the actual title of the article (rather than its use in sentences). Dana boomer (talk) 16:58, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I've added group columns and moved wild horse example. Can you add other equine columns as your an active in that area. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 18:49, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Rather then Appaloosa could you find a two word example as for article names the first letter is always capitalized anyway and therefore the example doesn't stand out different whether it's upper or sentence case. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 19:01, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

American Quarter Horse is a good example of a multi-word name in all title case, and which is the full official breed name. We also have articles with lower case "horse" in the title, not because the word "horse" is necessarily in the breed name, but because of the need to disambiguate titles in wikipedia. Those sort of have to be handled on a case by case basis. We also have non-breed "types" such as the feral horse, warmblood, draft horse, stock horse, gaited horse, etc. No problem keeping those lower case. It does look like an anarchy, but there is a structure to it. WPEQ has also had a lot of past challenges with well-meaning drive-by Wiki MOS hits that changes all the title case "Horse" titles to sentence case "horse" -- particularly on the pony articles (Most pony breeds are the "XYZ Pony" --Like the Shetland Pony -- but not all of them.) Bottom line is we have something like 350 breed articles, and most need to be looked at individually.  :-P Montanabw^(talk) 19:25, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

If there is 'a structure to it' is that described somewhere? Maybe a project talk page somewhere? Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 19:30, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

It is a false god to say that something is "official". It is common among specialists to allow creeping capitalisation, which is harmless if kept within the specialism. It then becomes a slight badge of honour to show that one knows how "it is done". We should resist the push to use specialist structures, where they aren't necessary, whether it is phraseology, grammar or capitalisation. They obscure meaning for the non-specialist user. Rich Farmbrough, 05:14, 28th day of January in the year 2011 (UTC).

Glad we seem to be "harmless" (LOL) There's no universal horse breeds general organization like the American Kennel Club for dogs that can settle the question. (All our international organizations are for the various sports, not the breeds) So basically over at WPEQ we've been defaulting when possible to what the various breed registry names are in most English-speaking countries. Thus, "official" is usually the registry name. This seems to have settled the horse/pony debates (if the registry wants to call it a horse, it's a horse, if they want to call it a pony, it's a pony, and we'll stay out of it!) and it usually works for the breed names too. Just as an example, we once had a "Friesian versus Frisian" debate at Friesian horse, settled in favor of the former spelling, primarily because this was the predominant spelling used by the registries in English-speaking countries. As for the capitalization of breed names, I know that debate is probably never going to be settled. The proper noun construction seems to work for breeds, particularly when so many of them have to be capitalized for other reasons anyway. The system isn't perfect, but that seems to be how it works. Montanabw^(talk) 21:14, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

My two cents

Okay Anna here is my opinion :) We really need to get the information about the Arthropods, Insects, Spiders, Cephalopods and Gastropods. Once you get that done I think it would be ready to go to open comment, I dont really see any issues as to why it would not be made a guideline as really all it is doing is centralising the information we alreay have. Do you have an idea as to where u wish to put the guidelines??? The fauna naming pages?? Or Wikiproject tree of life, wikiproject animals or every animal related project?? ZooPro 02:06, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

There are many editors who have such information and expertise. The whole point of making this open for comment is to fill in such blanks as Arthropods, Insects, Spiders, Cephalopods and Gastropods, and get consensus for the guidelines.

The intention is for the table to be included in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna)#Capitalisation_of common names of species.

I will add an extra column to the table entitled "Consensus Y/N", with N by default. Then, before adding (hopefully) the table to the guildelines page, we can remove items that are uncontroversial. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:07, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

If there's anything I can do to help, please let me know. Are you aiming for a single guideline for all taxa? Personally, I think that would be best since that would eliminate a lot of confusion. Right now, in an article about a national park, for instance, you have to know to use upper case for birds, sentence case for primates, etc. In every other professional encyclopedia, they use one rule and stick with it. (In every case I know, the encyclopedias use sentence case.) Either way, I feel we should standardize to avoid confusion. – VisionHolder « talk » 15:55, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

+1 ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 16:11, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I am aiming for a single guideline for all taxa, but as was reiterated in this discussion, and ones before it, a single guideline is probably decades away. This is a proposal to add a table of agreed-upon conventions for groups of animals. It's intended to be a first step. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 21:08, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

My concern is that a successful first step will effectively be a last step. Once people get set in their ways, no one's going to be willing to budge. Already, I think most groups are flexible (because there are no conventions), yet it's WP:Birds that I suspect will stick to its guns about its convention. Basically, if you give everyone the right to make their own laws at a local level, it will be impossible to take that right away at a later date. So I think this is a now or nothing kind of thing. – VisionHolder « talk » 22:13, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

In re: Birds. I find it hard to understand why there are people that speak of "rights given", as if this giving of "rights" is within their purview, and by their leave, and then forcibly "taking the rights away" at a later date, again as if it is within the purview of some sort of self-elected intellectual elite arrogating themselves as arbiters of correct scholastic comportment in manners of the naming of biota, including of birds. After many decades of having to deal with an enormously confusing set of common names, ornithological naming is finally starting to gel into some sort of coherent homologation of naming conventions. Now, apparently, some would wish to arbitrarily force conformation into a rather arbitrary and generalized set of naming conventions that would encompass all biotic classes. For many of those of us wishing a field-of-study oriented approach (in specific, in this case, ornithology) a forced move into intellectual socialism is not welcome. Personally, I would not gainsay the naming conventions of reputable experts that establish such e.g., mammals, reptiles, toadstools, or virus, after all, they are the experts in their fields, and they should establish by common accord among their peers, their naming conventions for the entities within their specific field of study. Moreover, the entire proposition of the wikipedia erecting itself as the supreme arbiters to actually establish themselves as judge of such questions is for many entirely outside of the mandate of what wikipedia should actually be doing, that is, collating and reporting knowledge in a coherent manner having drawn it from the specific fields of study, and certainly not constituting itself as some sort of intellectual dictatorship, and establishing policy in merit. Wikipedia should never make the mistake of considering itself a primary source, it is simply a referent, and if it does its job well it can be a very good referent, but that is it. I suggest those in disagreement as to their mandate through wikipedia contact immediately the IOC and simply inform them of your decisions as to their irrelevance, and that wikipedia will from this point on establish ornithological naming conventions as the supreme and only authority.Steve Pryor (talk) 07:03, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not even going to reply to this until you tone down your language. Please review WP:CIVIL. – VisionHolder « talk » 11:50, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

In the ornithological and birding communities, this is not up for discussion. The practice of capitalizing species was settled long, long ago and is now a recognized (and dare I say, celebrated) convention. (Speaking as an editor of a American Birding Association publication, I can honestly say there would be massive upheaval if I suddenly stopped capitalizing species names.) There is a big difference between a blue jay (of which there are dozens) and a Blue Jay (which is a particular species). But speaking to the larger point, why is this discussion even happening? If you don't specialize in birds, then don't worry about them. Natureguy1980 (talk) 21:22, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Would you ever capitalize a bird name and lowercase a non-bird name in a single paper? "The Bald Eagle killed the red fox." Or is a consistent style chosen for an entire paper (or publication)? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:34, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Natureguy1980 (talk) 15:01, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

"Yes" to the last question, or all of them? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:28, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Erik, I certainly don't have as many mammalogical treatises in my personal library as I do ornithological, however, I do have a copy of Walker's, have access to Wilson & Reeder's, and am buying the Lynx Edicions set of Mammals of the World, of which I have the two volumes published to this date. All of them, when they first present the species account of a particular mammal, use upper case. E.g. Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes). However, at least in the Walker's there is then the tendancy to resort, once the species has been formally presented, to lower-casing the animal type (i.e., in the case, fox). To one, myself, that is not essentially a mammologist, it would seem to me to be more straightforward, and unequivocal, that the upper-case were used. I can understand that if somebody is using Red fox, that Vulpes vulpes is intended, however, were I totally unknowledgeable and reading about a red fox, but knowing that mammal species can have pelage morphs, and that the characteristic of redness may not be specific only to Vulpes vulpes, well, were I to casually read about a red fox, I might be confused as to the actual species being talked about.Steve Pryor (talk) 15:28, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Table vs prose

The following is an excerpt from a recent discussion here:

Question: is this just an update and revision of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna) or will it change other existing guidelines? Viriditas (talk) 21:12, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

The former. However, during discussion, before the table is added, existing conventions can be nailed down and listed. (Some may be agreed upon, but not listed.)

Also:

• An easy-read display would be good. The guidelines (Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna)), are laid out mostly in sentence form. It takes a bit of time to find what you're looking for, and such a presentation discourages expansion.
• The more comprehensive the better. Cases like Talk:Palawan Peacock-pheasant are not covered.
• The table format encourages expansion.
• The table format makes it easy to see, at a glance, what conventions are used for what animals.
• The table can contain items with no agreed upon convention, indicating exactly that. This is useful too. This can be cited to prevent edit warring. It shows that we are aware of a specific case, and have not arrived at consensus. Again, Talk:Palawan Peacock-pheasant is a good example.

What do you think? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:07, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Typically, a table presentation is used as a supplemental figure to illustrate prose. I would focus on describing the capitalization guidelines in prose and supplementing the description with a table as an example. Viriditas (talk) 08:06, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Interesting point. May I paste the last bit of this thread (starting with "...Question: is this just an update and revision of...") into the draft talk? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:50, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Do whatever you like. Viriditas (talk) 08:55, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Capitalization of common names of animal species

As part of a discussion at WikiProject Animals, a number of editors have indicated that the presentation of the current guidelines on the capitalization of common names of species is somewhat unclear.

We wish to clarify and confirm existing uncontroversial guidelines and conventions, and present them in a "quick-reference" table format, for inclusion into the guidelines for the capitalization of common names of species. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 04:07, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Best advice I can give is to look at a similar animal and see what the capitalization is on that. Use the same capitalization for all similar taxa. If you hear a preference preferred by the related project, honor it. I see no need to add more rules to how we do things around here. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 06:17, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

It might help to link to WP:CREEP in case Anna isn't familiar with what you are getting at. Viriditas (talk) 12:31, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Bob: I understand what you mean. I, personally, have no trouble picking the right case. I've just seen so many edits, page moves, and discussions over uncertainty. I thought a table would be good because one doesn't need to read the whole thing before deciding it's not what they need. It's a directory where one looks something up. I wonder if it could be a {{main}} or something. How about an article? Kidding. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 13:38, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Viriditas: I was reading up on instruction creep today. I don't want to cause undue expansion of guideline pages. You already know how I feel about too many guidelines.

So I guess one question comes to mind: Does this mish-mash of conventions go on at Wikipedia for the next several decades, or do we do what Britannica would do? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 13:38, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Bob, I don't like your approach, because I think an inconsistency here looks very amateurish. I think for questions of style, it is best for us to make general guidelines and follow them in most cases. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:45, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

The first species I could find was Chaffinch. Sources disagree on the capitalization ([2], [[3], [4], [5], [6]), but this is how I see it: a finch is a general category of things, much like computers. The Chaffinch is a specific species, like a Macintosh computer. And a Blue Chaffinch is a particular variety of the species, like an iMac is a type of Macintosh computer. There definitely needs to be a distinction between "blue Chaffinch" and "Blue Chaffinch"—the former refers to any Chaffinch that is blue in color, and the latter to the specific subspecies. I'm not sure, however, whether "Chaffinch" should be capitalized as well.

Also, we don't usually capitalize "human" for Homo sapiens, so I'm of the opinion that we should determine capitalization on a case-by-case basis either on common usage, the prevailing authoritative sources (if they exist), and common sense.

/ƒETCHCOMMS/ 14:56, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

If we defer to prevailing sources, then I think in almost every case we will use lowercase. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:01, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

That's fine with me. If the major scientific journals and databases use lowercase, we can too. I'm just hoping there won't be a big debate over lowercase/uppercase like the dash debacle. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 22:00, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

The main holdout is wp:BIRDS, afaict. I don't think it would be quite as nasty as the -/–/—/− debate was. :) ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 23:15, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Other encyclopedias use sentence case for all common names, including birds. Whether it be sentence or upper case, I suggest the same approach: consistency. It makes Wikipedia look much more professional. – VisionHolder « talk » 00:11, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

this is an especially bad example of what the current state of affairs leads to. Is anyone arguing that this is a good thing? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 00:23, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Not at all - and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Animals, plants, and other organisms tries to make it clear that this sort of thing is unacceptable, regardless of the naming conventions for species used by different WikiProjects. Ben MacDui 07:46, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

• "You said "Also, we don't usually capitalize "human" for Homo sapiens,". I suppose we don't when we say "human rights". But I think we would in the context of "The Human Klingon War" or "Human/Kree relations. Sabine's Sunbird talk 19:22, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

  Well, human is a genus anyway, strictly speaking, so I don't think anyone is really talking about capitalizing it generally. Just like we don't capitalize eagle when its not referring to a specific species: "Hey is that an eagle?"ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:35, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• It would be useful to have consistency, and to follow main usage in reliable sources. I have frequently been perplexed by the use of capital case for some animals and birds in Wikipedia articles. It doesn't look or feel right, and when researching into the situation, it appears that our guidelines are all over the place. The bird guideline is unacceptable - it states that in some articles the name should be capitalised, but not in others. As there appears to be no standard usage for capitalising bird names, and reliable sources, including Britannica, use sentence case, then we should default to sentence case. Randomly using capitals is not good prose. The argument that you would need to use capitals to differentiate between a brown bear and a Brown Bear is based on a false premise, as the way a sentence is constructed would allow for the meaning to be clear. "The brown bear is a large bear, generally brown in colour." "The common starling is a starling common in Europe." If a sentence is written in such a way that the meaning is not clear, then that is a prose issue, and the sentence would need to be restructured; putting non-proper nouns in capitals to attempt to provide meaning is not an appropriate solution as it gives the impression that there is an official capitalisation as well as making the prose feels clumsy and juvenile. All bird and animal names should follow sentence case. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 02:08, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

  Sigh... Why does it always end up with a go at the bird project, the one project which is absolutely consistent with capitalisation policy,for reasons that have been argued for at least eight years? Incidentally Blue Chaffinch isn't a variety of Chaffinch, it's a separate species — which looks like a blue Chaffinch! Jimfbleak - talk to me? 14:58, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

  SilkTork, I think the point that Brown Bear makes it clear you aren't talking about a brown Ursus americanus is reasonable. If we were making up a new language, that might be a great idea. But we aren't, we're using written English, and that simply isn't how written English works. It's a pity. Jimfbleak, birds always comes up because inconsistent capitalization looks amateurish. I think we really ought to try to be consistent across Wikipedia with respect to style issues. When it comes to a question like how to capitalize species names, we can take an approach like looking at reliable sources to see how species are capitalized in reliable sources. I've seen 1.) capitalize each word like Blue Chaffinch, capitalize the first word like Blue chaffinch, and lowercase like blue chaffinch. RS seem to overwhelmingly prefer the latter. Even for birds. I just did a scholar search for "Blue Chaffinch" (w/quotes). On the first page, 7 used lowercase. 2 used upper in running text. 1 result was inapplicable. I'm probably doing something wrong with this search, but no matter what species I search for this is the kind of experience I have. Why do we do something different than scholarly literature does for birds? Why just for birds? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:42, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

  Hey, it's this fight again. How about no? For the same reasons we give every single time. And Erik, using capitals does not make us look amateurish. We follow the same widely followed convention that most ornithological works do. The convention that we get all our common names from. The one used by BirdLife International and the IUCN. The one used by the major handbooks, including the Handbook of the Birds of the World. The one used by many journals. Sabine's Sunbird talk 19:16, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

  It looks amateurish if we are inconsistent. Some journals do capitalize; it's true. But do most? They don't seem to; if I'm wrong can you help me figure out what I'm doing wrong with my google scholar searches?

  Wikipedia is inconsistent about a lot of things. We use different citation styles in different articles. We use different varieties of English in different articles. Consistency is nice, but it isn't the be all and end all, and applying it ruthlessly without taking individualality and differences into account is a sure faire way to achieve nothing more than a lot of pissed off editors. Sabine's Sunbird talk 00:40, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

  It is nevertheless interesting to see a number of people that rarely, if ever, have edited a bird article on wikipedia seem to believe they know how bird names are (or at least should be) written. Among the many citations for the correct ;-) use of caps (e.g. House Swallow, not house swallow), see the long reference section on WP:BIRD. Yes, if you look hard you can find bird sources that use the no-caps version, but they're vastly outnumbered by sources that use caps.
  Should this no-caps proposal for birds pass I will, as a person that almost entirely edit bird articles, start pushing for changes to how e.g. mammal names are written (I can certainly provided as many, if not more, mammal sources that use caps as bird source that don't). Of course I'm not being serious about proposing such a change, but if I was I assume the response from WP:MAMMAL would be less than favourable. As it rightfully should be; they're the main people writing mammal articles on wiki and presumably the ones with the greatest knowledge of that matter. That brings me back to the first sentence of my comment. • Rabo³ • 12:45, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

  I'm one of the many editors who accept that there is no consensus across different biological WikiProjects as to how common names should be written. So I'm not raising that issue. The issue for people like me is consistency within articles. I'm quite happy for an article about a bird to use title case for all common names. I'm not happy to see an article about a mammal altered to have title case just for the common names of birds, as was the case with some old versions of Island fox. So you need to clear what you are advocating:

  • If it's that articles about birds should consistently use title case for all common names, then this is within the current consensus.
  • If it's that the common names of birds should consistently be in title case regardless of the topic of the article, then I think that this is not within the current consensus.

  Failure to distinguish between these two cases has confused the debate, in my view. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:37, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

  My previous comment was aimed at bird or clearly bird-related articles. What people do elsewhere; I'll leave that to people that deal with those articles, but would argue for consistency within articles. Interestingly, the example (island fox) mentioned in Peter's comment presently combines a whole range of options: Non-caps (island fox, golden eagle), "half-caps" (Swift [fox], Kit fox), full caps (American Bison, Loggerhead Shrike). As a featuered article, I'll leave the WP:MAMMAL people to deal with that, but even if disregarding the birds it appears to partially contradict their own policy. • Rabo³ • 14:59, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

  Until a few months ago, mammal articles generally used title case, so presently there is little consistency. The article on the island fox will need a lot of fixing up to stay an FA. Ucucha (talk) 15:04, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

  Wow. I sure hope you're not advocating its removal solely on the grounds of mixed use of capitals! MeegsC | Talk 16:15, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

  I never said that. But the article has a lead that is far too short; much uncited text; relatively few and in part poorly formatted references. Ucucha (talk) 16:21, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

  Rabo3—"I can certainly provided as many, if not more, mammal sources that use caps as bird source that don't"—can you show me how you are doing this analysis? Pretty much whenever I do a google scholar search for a species, I see 70-80% lower case in running text, eg "Blue Chaffinch". What am I doing wrong? Is there a better way to analyze this? I tried just looking at the last couple years, since an argument is made occasionally that capitalizing is a new standard that is gaining traction in the ornithological world, but this isn't much different. Thanks! ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:42, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

  From this example, I don't get the proportions you give. My Google Scholar search for "Blue Chaffinch" yielded 115 results. Of the brief summaries shown by Google, only 62 contained this phrase. Of the 62, 34 (55%) had "blue chaffinch", 28 (45%) had "Blue Chaffinch". (Counted automatically by the way.) There isn't much evidence of a trend either. Of the 32 I identified (semi-automatically so subject to some error) as pre-2000, 53% had "blue chaffinch"; of the 30 from 2000 onwards, 57% had "blue chaffinch". I conclude that, at least for this example, the evidence is of a lack of consensus rather than the reverse. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:58, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

  Erik, please see my Sandbox. Should anyone be able to provide a more authoritative list of bird sources, please do provide it. • Rabo³ • 03:38, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

  To be fair to the point that Erik made, your list is largely irrelevant to a Google scholar search. I think it's pretty clear that scientific journals are more divided in their usage than the kind of books you have listed in your sandbox page. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:44, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

  Rabo3, as I said at wt:birds, I think you make a pretty compelling case that a lot of ornithological journals/etc have guidelines prescribing capitals. I think the interesting question here is how to weigh that against overwhelming usage of lowercase in scholarly journals. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 16:50, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

  So we should submit to less precise authorities? For example, less specialised journals and books, in my experience, often use older taxonomies that ignore recent advances. You'll forgive me for wanting to rely on the expertise of experts not generalists. Sabine's Sunbird talk 18:43, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

  No, I'm referring to journal articles/etc written and peer-reviewed by experts. Yeah, it's probably clear that the style guides of ornithology publications should "count" for more than a typical article, but as far as I can tell an overwhelming majority of reliable sources use lowercase. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 05:15, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

  I know what you meant. That was my point - less specialised journal articles and books are experts in their specific field but often less so in other areas. For example I wouldn't rely on an ecological journal article for taxonomic information when I could go to a taxonomic one. So why rely on the nomenclature used by non-specialists when we have much better sources from specialists? Unless I was trying to win an argument with the specialists? ;) Sabine's Sunbird talk 05:21, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Erik: what is your evidence that "an overhelming majority of reliable sources use lowercase"? As I pointed out above, this is not true for your "blue chaffinch" example. My experience is that although it seems that a majority of academic journals may well use lowercase for all common names, it's certainly not an "overwhelming" majority. And academic journals are not the only "reliable sources"; indeed as per WP:PSTS, it can be argued that we should prefer secondary sources, such as handbooks, over primary sources, such as academic articles. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:47, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the comment that "I think it's pretty clear that scientific journals are more divided in their usage than the kind of books you [me, Rabo3] have listed in your sandbox page.": Did you check the entire list? If you do, you will notice that it includes books, organizations and journals. In all three groups I deliberately included bird sources from pretty much all levels (except sources aimed at children), and I even marked the journals depending on their level (pop vs. academic). I also specifically said (see the intro) that this is bird sources; not sources that cover all fields.
Why should bird articles not be based on specific bird sources? Is anyone seriously suggesting that the different fields on wiki should not be based on literature (books or journals) that specifically deal with that field? Should mammal articles on wiki not be based on sources that specifically deal with mammals!? I will repeat my earlier comment: Should anyone be able to provide a more authoritative list of bird specific sources than the one I provided, please do provide it. In fact, I'd be interested to know just one bird specific journal not on my list, but of higher/equal academic standing than the top ones I included. • Rabo³ • 14:02, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

I think you may be attributing to me views I don't hold and haven't put forward here! To be absolutely clear, let me summarize my position:

1. Sources which are specifically bird-based overwhelmingly prefer title case.
2. General academic sources (i.e. ones found by Google Scholar) are divided (more so than Erik claimed, at least in my experience), but do favour lower case.

Even if (2) were overwhelmingly in support of lower case, I agree entirely with you that this wouldn't outweigh (1). As it happens, my experience suggests that there isn't such overwhelming support, so it certainly doesn't outweigh (1). Peter coxhead (talk) 14:45, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarifications. Although my previous comment was iniated by a quote of yours, only the first few lines (I've now introduced a break) were directly aimed at that comment. The remaining were general questions to everybody. However, re-reading it I do see how it easily could be misunderstood as entirely aimed at you, and I hope this clarifies that. • Rabo³ • 15:03, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for looking at that; sorry I had missed your analysis above. Are you taking care to not count items where the summary does not show running text (which is what we are discussing)? eg., Hulme's Biological invasions in Europe... shows the name in the scholar search as capitalized, but—and this is difficult to tell from the snippet—in the book it is only mentioned in a table where everything is capitalized, and the book does not generally capitalize species names in running text. But perhaps you're right and my sampling was unfortunately skewed. I've never seen a result that was even close, though; eg I tried another search for "Bald Eagle" and in the first 3 pages of results, about 4 used capitals and pretty much every other result was lowercase. I may be doing this wrong or not being thorough enough. Thanks Peter, ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:33, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually you can often tell the convention used even from the title of an article: if the other nouns aren't capitalized but the bird common name is, as in "Contribution to the study of the Canarian avifauna: the biology of the Blue Chaffinch", it's fair to assume that title case is being used elsewhere. But I don't claim to have been very thorough; I was only making the point that the literature is divided. Also, it does seem to depend on the species you choose. Try "Spotted Flycatcher" in Google Scholar and you'll find plenty of title case examples; the same is true for "Golden Eagle". On the other hand, "Long-tailed Tit" produces mostly lower case. Strange... Peter coxhead (talk) 20:23, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Dog breeds are not species

Dog breeds are capitalized on the advice of the AKC, I think. Most sources don't do that. Why do we? Dicklyon (talk) 05:45, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I think a lot of weight is given to guides and organizations that are seen as authoritative, no matter how many RS disagree. I don't think we should do this to the extent that we do. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:04, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I've edited a lot of dog articles, and seen a lot of sources. I can say this - I am surprised when I find a source that doesn't capitalise all the words in that dog breed's name. However, some breed names were previously also used to describe groups of dogs (pointers, cocker spaniels, scottish terriers) and these are lower case, but these terms shouldn't be mixed up with the breed names. The consensus in the Dogs Project is that the guidelines used by the KC, AKC and FCI amongst others which capitalise all words in a breed name is that which we should stick by, and in most cases amongst existing articles, that is what currently happens. It is only in the exception, and generally where an editor doesn't know about this standard practice that they come in and change things (see Jack Russell Terrier which one of these days I'll get around to fixing to the correct capitalisation). Miyagawa (talk) 11:59, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Why is this split from the talk page of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna)?

I don't understand why we are not having this discussion at the talk page of the guideline page. We should not be splintering discussion like this.

• FWIW, trying to define "ornithological" vs "non-ornithological" is going to be amusing - my take would be that if the species is being discussed then it is ornithological and hence we do what we're doing now (i.e. capitalise). Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:24, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Quite agree - don't understand what the intention is here. Ben MacDui 07:28, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

• Regarding the table - is it that much needed than the alternative, which would be to slap a few lines under the other examples in Wikipedia:Fauna_name#Capitalisation_of_common_names_of_species? Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:30, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

• More generally, it is not entirely clear to me what the purpose of the table is intended to be. It seems to be partly about naming conventions but principally about the use of text in essentially fauna-related articles - but there are numerous articles that refer to flora and fauna. If there is any intention to introduce a guideline that might cause a change to e.g. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Animals, plants, and other organisms then it certainly should not continue here. Ben MacDui 07:28, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

The intention is to "...To clarify and confirm existing uncontroversial guidelines and conventions, and present them in a "quick-reference" table format..." This can avoid needless discussions, reverts and page moves. If the table were available, discussions like this wouldn't take place. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 07:48, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure that the table does that in this particular case - having read the thread I understand the logic, but in the table the upper case "P" in Pheasant looks completely random and at variance with common practice elsewhere. If the table is to be useful then explaining "exceptions to the rule" would be helpful. To repeat what I said above in a different way, if the intention is purely "To clarify and confirm existing uncontroversial guidelines and conventions in relation to articles about fauna..." then that's fine by me. What I am a clear about is that you need to avoid any discussion here that might impinge on articles about flora or mycology, or articles about wildlife (or that have wildlife sections) that cover more than one taxonomic group. Sentences such as "Individual articles should be consistent in using either title or sentence case for common names" give me concern - it hints at a meaning of "common name" that is different from that of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna). Ben MacDui 09:25, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Good points. I really don't know if this table should be included in the guidelines. I am just trying to prevent all these arguments over conventions and maybe help consistency. If this table is rejected, fine. The community knows best, and I won't be offended. I'm just putting this out there for your consideration. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:55, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I am wary that two issues are being mixed up here - we have a 'table' which I am not hugely fussed about one way or the other, and then we have some statements within which seem to diverge from current practice, hence I am wondering how/why they are there -was the purpose to re-examine name usage, or merely formatting? If the table were merely reformatting existing usage then it'd just be a matter of someone reformatting Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(fauna)#Capitalisation_of_common_names_of_species...?Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:19, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Just a quick comment regarding the P in Pheasant (as it relates to Peacock-Pheasant) is not random. The english name convention WP:BIRDS uses capitalizes the word after the hyphen only if both words prior to and after the hyphen are birds, otherwise it is not (Peacock-Pheasant, Cuckoo-Hawk, Hawk-Eagle, etc, but Racket-tail, Bleeding-heart, Thick-knee, Stone-curlew). Regarding the larger discussion, it appears this has been hashed around a few times in the past. Seems like a lot of work to make the entire kingdoms of life consistent, not to mention the time it would take to find a consensus, or be a big deal to take the time to move to a more consistent format. What works for birds may not make sense to anyone else. It seems to work for us....Pvmoutside (talk) 14:49, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Per the above, I realise there is a logic, but it is not at all obvious to the uninitiated and what I was suggesting is that the table clarify this rather than assume the casual reader would understand it. Ben MacDui 19:12, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

The obvious reason this is split from WP:Naming conventions (fauna) is that fanciers of certain animals, especially birds, want to impose a weird convention, favored by some (not even all) specialist publications and no one else, on the entire encyclopedia, which is a generalist publication. This is also why these few projects like to have WP:LOCALCONSENSUS chit-chats like #Draft capitalization guidelines here that are canvassed around the animal projects but not advertised anywhere else, much less at the talk page of the controlling guideline, WP:MOS, where they know that the majority of regular Manual of Style editors strongly oppose this nonsense. The idea that everyone is on board with rampant capitalization of animal names is very, very false. PS: This should really be resoled at WT:MOS, not WT:Naming conventions (fauna), because it affects usage in both prose and article names. Except in weird cases, the naming conventions follow the MOS, not vice versa. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 20:38, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Breeds are not species

As has been pointed out above, dog breeds are not species. But nor are breeds of any other domestic animal. Rather than include a few domestic animals (dog and horse for now, I think) in a table relating to species, could there not be some generalised guidelines for breed names? Of course, there may be already, and I've just failed to find them. I believe those guidelines should allow individual WikiProjects to establish a specific usage, but should also offer general advice for breeds that do not have a project. WikiProject Guinea-pigs may never really take off; so how will I decide the capitalisation for my forthcoming articles on the 20 or so edible breeds (Cuy serrano or Cuy Serrano?), or indeed on fancy breeds such as the Abyssinian Satin Guinea-pig? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 10:41, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Guideline(s) for breeds should be separate from guidelines for species. I have removed the breeds from the table. Nurg (talk) 00:57, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Lack of clarity for non-species articles

I know that you don't want to address the issue of Wiki-wide conformity to either sentence or upper case. However, the guidelines fail to address the issue of handling non-species articles (such as those on national parks), which may mention multiple taxa covered under multiple projects. Will it be up to author discretion? If so, we will have significant inconsistency between articles and only more confusion despite these guidelines. Can this be clarified? – VisionHolder « talk » 17:16, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

With respect to style issues, we should have a consistent style and try to stick to it everywhere; if you see species capitalized in the middle of running text on any article please feel free to lowercase it. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:07, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

This issue is addressed at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Animals, plants, and other organisms. Ben MacDui 19:10, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Consensus seems to have been reached

It seems that the community doesn't feel this table is necessary. I trust the community. I don't want editors to waste further time on this. Thanks to all for your opinions. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 20:52, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

The table hasn't even been finished. How was it already rejected? Kaldari (talk) 00:00, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Regardless, it's interesting to see the results of the table:

• Breeds and Birds are Uppercase
• Mammals and Butterflies are undecided
• Everything else is sentence case

Perhaps the guidelines could be modified to reflect that, rather than using a table. Kaldari (talk) 00:10, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I disagree Anna, it will help the community, we arnt changing anything just making all the information available in one place. ZooPro 08:49, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks ZooPro. That's what I've been saying. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 12:27, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

It may or may not help those who are working on species articles and have religious convictions about capitalization. For the rest of us who regularly name multiple animals in articles we work on (zoos for me), and are NOT specialists, a single summary will help. I work on WikiPedia to improve articles, not split hairs or spend all my time reading the MoS. My current working summary (I think this meets current MoS guidelines) is:

• In articles about an animal, follow whatever convention the title indicates. Those who keep the faith can fight over the article title.
• In articles that are not about an animal, lower case everything in running text, and use the capitalization from the animal article title in lists.

None of my edits in this manner has ever been reverted (yet). Quite frankly, in running text capitals are distracting to the readers who, in non-animal articles, are usually not specialists in animal taxonomy (hint: most of the world is not). Don Lammers (talk) 13:40, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

The table could have the unfortunate effect of even more sharply relating the two conventions to groups rather than articles. This is what produces the mess of the Island fox example: mammals are treated one way in the body of the article, birds another. I would suggest being clear that "Articles should be internally consistent" is a principle which outweighs all other considerations. I think that which of the two conventions to use should be decided only by the subject of the article and should never change internally for different groups. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:28, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

@ Don Lammers - Your approach is perfectly consistent with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Animals, plants, and other organisms and there is no reason why anyone should revert this usage - although other options are also available.

@Peter coxhead - internal consistency is the aim of the above - although it says nothing about conventions being decided by "the subject of the article" and I am not sure how that would work. Like Don Lammers I often edit articles that cover "two or more taxonomic groups" - although in my case they are usually geographical subjects - and you simply have to choose one style and stick with it. Ben MacDui 17:02, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Ben: I'm not quite sure what you mean by "the above". My point is that there is a danger that the way the table is presented could, in spite of the notes under "Remarks", imply that for "animal type" = bird (for example), capitals should be used regardless of the article in which the text is placed (as happened with Island fox). My view is that principles should be applied in this order:

• Articles should be internally consistent.
• Where there is no good reason to the contrary, the style of the WikiProject to which the article 'belongs' should be followed.

This implies that an article whose subject is a bird species should probably use title case throughout for all common names, whereas an article whose subject is a mammal or a plant should not. I don't think that this approach is captured by the present wording. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:08, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

By "above" I meant Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Animals, plants, and other organisms in the sentence immediately preceding, which does cover these issues. I agree with you, but see also my opening comment here at 8:28 am, 16 September 2011. Ben MacDui 18:19, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Right, and the first of my points above is indeed covered there ("Use a consistent style of capitalization for species names in articles covering two or more taxonomic groups.") However, the second is not. I think that with some edits, the table which Anna prepared is useful in this respect. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:31, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Project Gastropods

Hi Anna, three of our most active members agree that gastropod common names should be in sentence case based at least in part on one important source that attempts to standardize common names and uses sentence case. As yet I have had no comments arguing against this. I don't know if this is helpful for you to know or not. Invertzoo (talk) 18:29, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

I have taken the liberty of filling in the relevant part of the table, even though I doubt one can call 3 people a consensus! Invertzoo (talk) 18:41, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Was this ever a proposal?

The page was recently tagged as a "failed proposal", but I'm not aware that it was ever actually proposed. I think that it was prepared for presentation as a proposal, but never put forward for community approval. In any case, it wasn't, as I understand it, meant to be a proposal, but a summary of what was the situation at the time. It's clearly now out-of-date, so tagging it as such seems more accurate. However, I may be unaware of a proposal to make this an "official" page. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:15, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Marking it {{dormant}} isn't valid. It is proposed guideline (see name: Draft capitalization guidelines) that failed to gain consensus and was superseded by a real guideline. Whether it went through a formal WP:PROPOSAL process isn't relevant. It's been invalidated by MOS settling on one standard at MOS:LIFE in April 2012. This is not a "dormant" proposal than can come back, any more than the WP:NNOT draft guideline can. The tag we have for such pages is {{failed}}. It's not a value judgement, just a procedural fact: "did not gain consensus within a reasonable amount of time", and in both cases was directly superseded by alternatives that actually did gain consensus. Also, you really to need to quit following me around from page to page reverting everything I do or exhorting others to do so. See WP:HOUNDING.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(^Ʌⱷ҅̆_⚲͜ⱷ^{^})≼  12:05, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not following you; it's just that you're editing pages on my watchlist.

My understanding is that the point of this page was the table which summarized the status quo at the time, rather than making any proposals. So it just seemed (and still seems) to me that to mark it as a "failed proposal" is not accurate.

However it seems from what you wrote above that we agree that it has been superseded, so {{superseded}} is surely the best tag? Peter coxhead (talk) 13:12, 6 April 2014 (UTC)