User talk:SchreiberBike/Bird names

IOC list[edit]

Bird names in Wikipedia ornithology articles should be capitalized when using names from the IOC World Bird List—This isn't quite right. The upper-case folks, I think, would want to capitalize even if the name is not on the bird list, e.g. Common Gull. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 23:07, 11 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it's ok anyway, I'm not sure if it needs to be fixed. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 23:20, 11 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wording[edit]

Bird names in Wikipedia ornithology articles should be capitalized when using names from the IOC World Bird List.

Bird names in Wikipedia, like the names of other animals, should generally be lower case.

It might be good to include the word "species" somewhere. This is specifically about species. Nobody, for example, wants to capitalize eagle when it is by itself: "I saw an eagle." It's not a species. It also might be good to clarify that the first option probably implies that all species names are lowercased in non-bird articles, and all species names are uppercased in bird-themed articles. How about something like the following? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 23:19, 11 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Common names of species should be capitalized in ornithology articles, using the style found in the IOC World Bird List if applicable. Cape Robin-Chat, Bald Eagles eat Pink Salmon.

Common names of species should generally be lowercase, except where proper names appear. bald eagles eat Chinook salmon, Przewalski's horse

@ErikHaugen: Thanks for your ideas above! I'm completely new to this controversy. I went to WP:BIRDS to see exactly what it says there. The sentence "The common name of a species is always capitalised to differentiate it from more general terms" has been stable for a couple of years. Based on that and the discussion on WT:MOS, it seems like they are saying that all species names are always capitalized in bird articles. I hadn't realized that. I also received feedback from @Stfg: on WT:MOS and tried to incorporate that.

Please select one of these options or participate in the discussion below:
(This is part of a discussion of the phrasing for the options. Please do not select or participate.)

Capitalize: Common names of species should be capitalized in Wikipedia bird articles (examples: Black-crowned Night Heron or Adult Bald Eagles eat Pacific Salmon.) but lower case, except for proper names, in all other articles.

or

Lower case: Common names of species throughout Wikipedia should be lower case, except for proper names (examples: black-crowned night heron or Adult bald eagles eat Pacific salmon.).

- SchreiberBike (talk · contribs) 04:58, 12 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Objections, and suggestion to use simpler yes/no format[edit]

I posted this at WT:MOS, but this discussion seem to have moved here, so...

Objections:

As written, this is a poll to rewrite MOS, which already answered this capitalize vs. lower case question two years ago (actually 6 years ago, made really clear 2 year ago). Instead of addressing the policy problem of a wikiproject that doesn't want to abide by WP:CONLEVEL policy, you're rewarding them and encouraging more such behavior, by giving them yet another shot at questioning the consensus they've invested untold man-hours wearing everyone down on, to the point of exhaustion.
This entire line of questioning is prone to "I want an option 3 that includes goats and blowfish" and "I want an option 7 where we change the following other 12 things about MOS", and "I want an option where MOS is declared just some essay, so I can go capitalize the names of Lego Pieces and Government Job Titles", etc., etc. You know that's very likely to happen with polls setup as a list of options. It's much more practical to put this in yes/no, do/don't, support/oppose terms (see below).
My earlier objection that the proposal/poll launched by Andrewa, (which has now spawned this new variant) is inappropriate favoritism to one wikiproject still stands. That would be obviated by using a yes/no format as I outline below.
In the case that I'm ignored and we proceed with something like this "support option 1", "support option 2" structure you're laying out, putting the birds option first implies it's a default. But the default is the MOS rule that the WP:BIRDS#Naming essay is ignoring, and we mustn't endorse a version that treats a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy violation like it's normal.
Also, "except for proper names" is too imprecise.; use "except where proper names occur in them". Half of the people in this debate have been making linguistically unsound arguments that species common names are proper names, so we have to clarify that we mean proper names insde species common names. If this seems too obvious consider that someone above was dead certain that we were talking about decapitalizing so much that "american kestrel" would result, and even after it was explained to them that that wasn't true, they still thought it was true! One would hope "at the start of a sentence or heading" is not also needed, but be prepared to add it if you go this route. But why on earth go this route? See below for simpler approach. Why try to come up with iffy approximations of wording we've already hashed out in great detail? Just use MOS's own wording. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 07:15, 14 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Simpler yes-or-no take that would make this much less prone to gaming, stacking and disrupting

Should the sentence:
"Some editors prefer to capitalize the IOC-published common names of birds (Golden Eagle) in ornithological articles; do not apply this style to other categories."

be removed from the following Manual of Style passage:

"Common (vernacular) names are given in lower case, except where proper names appear (zebras, mountain maple, gray wolf, but Przewalski's horse). Some editors prefer to capitalize the IOC-published common names of birds (Golden Eagle) in ornithological articles; do not apply this style to other categories."
and conforming edits made to relevant wording in other pages, including but not necessarily limited to MOS:CAPS, WP:NCFAUNA, WP:NCFLORA and WP:NCCAPS?

Simple, easy and focuses on not treating WP:BIRDS like it's own special kingdom with more rights than other editors.

— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 07:15, 14 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure making the distinction above, from your "Objections" section, is appropriate or useful in this discussion. But, it might be anyway simpler to phrase any RFC like this, just focus on whether the sentence should be removed. I like it. Maybe it could be made clear that if there's consensus to do that then as a result we'll start moving bird articles and lowercasing running text. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:38, 14 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've responded to SMcCandlish at WT:MOS#Alternate phrasing of the proposed RfC. SchreiberBike talk 23:14, 14 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with several (not all) of SMcCandlish's points.

This RfC as proposed [1] were to succeed, that would indeed be a resolution.

Only three problems:

I don't think it will succeed. I think that there are sufficient arguments against this overall standardisation, some often expressed in the past and some that I've only recently introduced, sufficient for consensus to still be unlikely.
It's one-sided, in that if it does not produce a consensus to remove the clause and adjust other guidelines to conform to this, then we've just gone around another loop. I don't think such a rejection would be seen by those who would support the RfC as giving WikiProject:Birds or the other areas that depart from this standard a clear endorsement of their current practice. It would just leave the current situation unresolved.
There should be a similtaneous proposal for introduction of a clause that endorses capitalisation in certain circumstances without linking it specifically to WikProject:Birds. Instead we should allow for capitalisation in cases that are attested in reliable sources. We could and should give the handbooks etc. that follow IOC rules for bird species as an example, but not the only one. Dog breeds and plant cultivars are two others.

Sorry if that's a bit negative, and agree in principle with SMcCandlish's desire for simplicity. I just don't see how we can usefully make it even as simple as proposed so far, if we're to take this to a formal RfC. Andrewa (talk) 05:56, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Andrewa:, It's great to get feedback on ideas and I'm not committed to anything I've seen so far. SMcCandlish's proposal has the advantage that the meaning would be clear if it passed. I do worry about the clarity of discussion when the options are "remove the sentence" vs. "keep the sentence" instead of "lower case" vs. "upper case". If the proposal failed, we would be exactly where we are now. Perhaps at that point a new proposal could be made which would specify when and where capitalization should be used, or perhaps then disorder would just continue. If you can come up with new language, and I hope you can, post here or at WT:MOS#Alternate phrasing of the proposed request for comments. Thanks, SchreiberBike talk 06:32, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think that both proposals are clear if they pass. The problem is just if they don't pass, and there has been no consensus on similar proposals in the past, and there's no evidence that consensus has changed. But of course there's only one way to really test that!

Perhaps the time has come for some other sort of proposal. I'm thinking hard... Andrewa (talk) 07:17, 22 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]