Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Titles of works

contradiction in MOS:SERIESTITLE?

So I was happy to find the MOS:SERIESTITLE section, which includes: Those [media franchise series] with official names from the publisher are capitalized (in the singular, not in plural and other genericizing constructions), without quotation marks or italics: Marvel Universe, Marvel Cinematic Universe, and DC Universe, but the Marvel and DC comics universes.

But then it goes on in what I can't help but feel is a contradiction:

However, the following should be set in italics:

• Actual titles of a series declared by the author or publisher: Les Rougon-Macquart, The Chronicles of Narnia

So... official names from the publisher are not italicized... unless an actual title is declared by the author or publisher?

Don't get me wrong... I don't think we should be italicizing series titles, especially the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Disney/Marvel does refer to their movies as the MCU, so I don't see how that's not an "actual title" as declared by the publisher. Can someone point out the distinction between how we treat The Chronicles of Narnia and the MCU to me? —Joeyconnick (talk) 17:48, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

The Chronicles of Narnia is essentially one long work that is presented as a series of novels. The Marvel Cinematic Universe, like Narnia and like Middle-earth, is a setting for some stories.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:14, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

I'd argue that titles which describe shared universes should not be italicized. HaiFire3344 (talk) 00:05, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Concerts

In the section Neither, it says to not italicise "Exhibitions, concerts, and other events". So we end up with Dangerous World Tour instead of – what I believe is logical – Dangerous World Tour. Why, then, do we have list of Game of Thrones characters, list of South Park episodes, etc.? Mac Dreamstate (talk) 13:03, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

It should probably be revised to say to italicize the part that contains the name of an italicized work, to be consistent with the sorts of examples you illustrate. This was just an oversight. What we don't want to see is markup like Dangerous World Tour (or "Dangerous World Tour" in quotes)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:12, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

 Done Since no one objected or provided a counter argument, and we did have an actual conflict between "italicize album names" and "don't italicize concert tour names", I have made [1] this change. As it is substantive and would affect content at articles like Dangerous World Tour, someone might revert me and want further discussion.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:07, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Conflicting styles

Here, under MOS:ITALICTITLE, laws are not in the list of works that should have their titles italicized. This was clarified at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Titles of works/Archive 3#Italics for legislation. However, at MOS:CANLAW, it's stated, "in Canada, per the McGill Guide, titles of acts are italicized". Which of these opposing instructions governs? ₪ MIESIANIACAL 01:39, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

I've taken this to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting. --₪ MIESIANIACAL 00:20, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't think titles of acts should at all be italicized on WP, which is not written by McGill. Importing weird "do it differently just because we feel like it" variances from off-site style guides produces reader-confusing inconsistency across articles, which is the opposite of why we have a manual of style. There is no discussion at WT:MOSCAN or its archives establishing a consensus for doing that. A discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting#Conflicting styles did not conclude with a consensus to do such italicizing, and considerable opposition. An essentially duplicate discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Conflicting styles for names of laws isn't showing anything like a pro-italics consensus emerging, either.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:10, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Music video: italicize or not?

In a list of music videos in which a person appears (perhaps singing, but perhaps not), should the names of the music videos use double quotation marks or be italicized? As a video, I normally would have italicized the name as an example of a short film, which is covered under MOS:MAJORWORK; but since the subject matter of the video is a single song, I am wondering if double quotation marks (per MOS:MINORWORK) are more appropriate. Here's an example: Yash_(actor)#Music_videos. — Archer1234 (t·c) 22:19, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Quotation marks, just like the song it's a video of.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:02, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Two visual arts–related cases which should be removed

The "Minor works" section recommends double quotation marks for "Exhibits (specific) within a larger exhibition". The rationale seems to be that as the titles of (some) exhibitions take italics per MOS:MAJORWORK, the exhibits within them must correspondingly follow MOS:MINORWORK, like chapters within a book or songs within an album. I think this is extending that logic too far. In reality, if an exhibit within an exhibition is a painting the title will take italics per MOS:MAJORWORK, if it's an archaeological artefact it will take neither italics nor quotation marks per MOS:NEITHER, and so on. There's no need to have a guideline for exhibits as there are guidelines for the specific kinds of objects those exhibits are, and they conflict with it.

Also, in MOS:NEITHER, the final clause should be removed from "Names of buildings and other structures, aside from statues (artworks)." Public statues are often treated as having names rather than titles (see MOS:ART/TITLE) and so take neither italics nor quotation marks. Ham II (talk) 19:55, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Agreed - remove the first, & perhaps weasel the second - many statues do have titles, for example Michelangelo's David, and many of his companions from around 1500 on. Johnbod (talk) 04:32, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

There's been no objection to the first suggestion after a fortnight, so I've removed that item, and also the reference to "individual exhibits" at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Titles of works § Major works.

I could have been clearer about public statues: the article titles for many of them fall under the "descriptive names" guideline at MOS:NEITHER (Statue of Liberty, Statue of Bruce Lee (Hong Kong), Statue of Mary Seacole) – and that is the general rule for "portrait sculptures of individuals in public places", per MOS:ART/TITLE. Others, however, are treated as having titles: Manneken Pis, The Little Mermaid (statue), Christ the Redeemer (statue). So I would now suggest two changes to MOS:NEITHER: adding "statue of Mahatma Gandhi" as one of the examples in the "Descriptive titles" bullet point, and changing "Names of buildings and other structures, aside from statues (artworks)" to "Names of buildings and other structures, except for any statues covered by MOS:ITALICTITLE". Ham II (talk) 06:36, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Ok - maybe expand that a bit to explain. Johnbod (talk) 16:09, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

I could try giving the relevant kinds of sculpture their own bullet point in MOS:NEITHER and being more explicit that way, but they don't seem to me like a different enough case from the "Descriptive titles" examples. Unless you mean expanding the "Paintings, sculptures [etc.]" point at MOS:ITALICTITLE to explicitly mention which kinds of statues have titles in italics, but I'm even less keen on tinkering with that one.

It's occurred to me that, in addition to "statue of Mahatma Gandhi" at "Descriptive titles", it would be good to add "Statue of Liberty" to the sub-point on "conventional name that refers to a specific work but is a descriptor", where title case and no italics are used: "Symphony No. 2 by Gustav Mahler, Shakespeare's Sonnet 130", etc. Ham II (talk) 09:30, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

The "Exhibits (specific) within a larger exhibition" means sub-exhibitions named by the institution, not works of art that already had names that are on exhibit. E.g., if my museum has a big show called Punk and Post-punk Fashion, and a subdivision of that is titled "Goth Fashion". The analogy follows Book / "Chapter", TV Series / "Episode", Album / "Song", etc. quite reasonably.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:02, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

That's not a definition of "exhibit" I've ever come across, and it doesn't seem to be in Collins or Merriam-Webster's online dictionaries. I'm aware that in American English the term can be synonymous with "exhibition" while in British it's reserved for something that's exhibited, but I'd never heard this intermediate meaning before. In what I believe is our only featured article on an exhibition, Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam, the subdivisions are called "sections" and their titles aren't mentioned, so the issue of how to style those titles doesn't arise. I'd be surprised if there were many instances of articles naming sections of an exhibition; Rebel Girls: A Survey of Canadian Feminist Videotapes 1974–1988 is one that does, I see. Ham II (talk) 19:33, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

In the above example, the exhibition would be Punk and Post-punk Fashion. See Wikipedia:Tertiary-source fallacy: the fact that definitions can be found that treat exhibit and exhibition as equivalent words in some contexts does not make them generally synonymous, or erase the fact that they have distinct usage, especially in this sort of context. Cf. also WP:IDONTKNOWIT: Whether you've personally come across a definition is irrelevant, especially if you've not actually looked. Just a few seconds on Dictionary.Cambridge.org: exhibition: an event at which objects such as paintings are shown to the public ...", but exhibit: an object that is shown to the public in a museum, etc. ... a collection of objects that is shown to the public in a museum, etc. (i.e. a discrete part of an exhibition).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:19, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

That is the British usage, which Ham and I are used to. You only have to look at google to see that while the Metropolitan Museum sends out press releases announcing new "exhibitions", the resulting web coverage is largely about "exhibits", meaning the whole thing. I've also never come across this sub-exhibition notion. Johnbod (talk) 15:00, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

"[A] collection of objects that is shown to the public in a museum, etc.": that's saying that "exhibit" is a synonym of "exhibition" in American English. (From SMcCandlish's source, dictionary.cambridge.org: "US (UK exhibition)". The example it gives is "Let's go see the new dinosaur exhibit".) It doesn't say anything about that collection of objects being within an exhibition at a museum, etc. Also, WP:AGF; it should be clear that I did look for evidence of the "sub-exhibition" definition in both an American dictionary (Merriam-Webster) and a British one (Collins). Ham II (talk) 11:01, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

MOS:MINORWORK

At this edit, Editor SMcCandlish added this sentence:

Another rule of thumb is that if the work is intended to stand alone and to be kept for later reference, or has content likely to be seen as having merit as a stand-alone work, italicize it, but use quotation marks if it is entirely ephemeral, trivial, or simply promotional of some other work or product.

That sentence has seen minor tweaks but remains essentially the same today. What I want to know is how that sentence accords with the unordered list of items that should be quoted. Is there a conflict here? Surely all of those things in the list are intended to stand alone and to be kept for later reference and have content likely to be seen as having merit as ... stand-alone [works]. So, to me MOS:MINORWORK is saying 'quote titles of these things' but on the other hand is saying 'italicize the titles of these things'. They both can't be right, so which is it?

The issue has been raised at Help talk:Citation Style 1 § what to do with {{cite document}}? where I have proposed a new template to replace the current {{cite document}} which (improperly) redirects to {{cite journal}}.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:49, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

It would have to mean if you can't find your document type in our enumerated listing of types of works, apply the rule of thumb as a last resort. It could be restated more clearly like that. If what you're citing or wring about is something like an book-length whitepaper, italicize it. If it's something like a Bajooka Joe comic on the inside of a gum wrapper, use quotation marks. It's a judgement call, like a lot of other MoS stuff; there's no way to reduce every imaginable case to a robotic decision.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:57, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

photos

Hi. No guidance is given on photographs here. Is an individual photo majorwork or minorwork, please? E.g. here individual photos are italicized identically with the collection they are in. Thanks. Spicemix (talk) 13:49, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

I don't think quotation marks are ever used in the literature for the titles of visual artworks, so the major work/minor work distinction that might hold in other fields doesn't really exist. It's italics for the titles of photographs, drawings and prints (including when they're part of a series), with no sense that these are more "minor" than other artforms such as painting or sculpture. Ham II (talk) 20:06, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for the courtesy of this reply. It does seem to be the case. It's inconsistent with Keats's great odes being minor, or Joyce's "The Dead". Spicemix (talk) 20:34, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Style for name of longer work appearing a part of a television series

A question I raised at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television)#Style for name of longer work appearing a part of a series may be of interest for watchers of this guideline. older ≠ wiser 13:57, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Should board game titles be italicized?

Currently the guideline says they should be, but actual practice is rather inconsistent. There also is not consistent guidance in other style guides, nor in media reporting on games. Want to make sure there's a clear consensus in favor of capitalization before editing hundreds of pages to standardize, in whatever direction. It also seems clear that some non-published games (e.g. Chess, Go, Reversi) shouldn't be capitalized, but this is not stated in the guideline either. Elli (talk | contribs) 23:14, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

That some authors are not following MOS regareding italicization of game titles does not seem to be a good reason to change the MOS. Any articles that include non-italicized game titles should be edited to add italics. As the OP has suggested, any game that was created or developed before the age of commercial game creation — poker, chess, whist, bridge, etc. — should not be italicized. Guinness323 (talk) 16:16, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Agree that the titles of published commercial games should be italicized. BOZ (talk) 17:56, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Just to give the links: Italicizing board game titles is in MOS:MAJORWORK. Capitalisation is in MOS:GAMECAPS; generally traditional games aren't, but Go is an exception.

CohenTheBohemian (talk) 13:58, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Are titles of novellas italicized?

The guidelines state that "books... and booklets" are, but that short stories take quotation marks instead. Where do novellas fall? They are sometimes published in book form, but so are short stories.

My suggestion is that they should take quotation marks, as they are closer to short stories than novels. I can see an exception if a) they are usually published independently and b) they are clearly shorter than novels, which in this context probably means "well under 50,000 words", but I don't think this exception would be invoked very often.

If this suggestion is agreed, by the way, Template:infobox novella should be edited so that it does not automatically italicise titles. CohenTheBohemian (talk) 14:15, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

I disagree. IMO novellas are closer to novels, and most are currently italicized, as are all the entries in List of novellas. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:23, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

(ec) I would say they should be italicized, at least in most cases. Certainly if they are usually printed by themselves, as eg all of Category:Novellas by Joseph Conrad normally are. Of course the definition of a novella is rather subjective. Category:Novellas contains many disambiguated by either "(novel)" or "(short story)". I wouldn't myself agree that "they are closer to short stories than novels". "The Ladybird is a long tale or novella by D. H. Lawrence", says the article, but it is categorized as a short story. Johnbod (talk) 14:35, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Michael Bednarek, Johnbod, thanks for your thoughts. Let me reply to both of you here.

As Johnbod points out, terminology is pretty vague. List of novellas and Category:Novellas are messy with things being labelled novels, short novels, short stories, etc. They're not good guides. As for Conrad, some of his novellas are printed independently (although Heart of Darkness was originally published with two other pieces) but not Typhoon, if a quick look at Amazon is reliable.

I think the Hugo and Nebula Awards for best novella are sensible. If it’s usually published as a book, italics; otherwise, quotation marks. Works sharing the title of a longer work, or with very similar titles, get quotation marks for clarity. If in doubt, italics.

CohenTheBohemian (talk) 14:49, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

That's about what my take would be. Italicize that which has been published in book form, use quotation marks for that which has only been published as a chapter/contribution in a larger volume. For something that's been published both ways, I would default toward to the italics.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:19, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Then what do people think about these additions?

To MOS:MAJORWORK, under the line about "books and booklets":

• Novellas which are usually published independently and do not have the same (or very similar) title as another major work such as a collection or novel. This is the default.

To MOS:MINORWORK, under the line about short stories:

• Novellas which are not usually published independently, or which have the same (or very similar) title as another major work such as a collection or novel. If in doubt, use italics.

CohenTheBohemian (talk) 11:51, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Sure, but "as another major work by that author".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:24, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

I think this is confusing. "Published independently" could mean self published, and I'm confused by the shared title part. I'd just say "The titles of novellas which have been published as stand-alone books are normally italicized. Novellas which are only published as part of collections use quotation marks. Quotation marks may also be used to help distinguish a novella from a longer work with the same or similar title." pburka (talk) 15:11, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I like that better.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:24, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

That looks good to me too; maybe add "by the same author" at the end per SMcCandlish's qualifier. CohenTheBohemian (talk) 16:12, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Are Sparkling Rain (anthology) and "Sparkling Rain" (short story) by the same author? Not really, but they still need to be distinguished. pburka (talk) 16:28, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Should names of franchises be italicized?

This guideline currently states:

Descriptive titles for media franchises (including trilogies and other series of novels or films) and fictional universes should not be placed in italics or quotation marks, even when based on a character or feature of the works

So, the way I'm reading it, this should be correct:

• Star Wars is a media franchise.
• Star Wars is a product from the Star Wars media franchise, likely Star Wars (film).

However, look at this page: List of highest-grossing media franchises.
And these pages: Winnie the Pooh (franchise), Disney Princess, Mario (franchise), The Lion King (franchise).

All those names are italicized. The only two pages that seem to follow the rule are Wizarding World and Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The confusing part for me here is the term descriptive title. This is apparently different from the official title?

If so, then this would be correct:

• Wookiees are aliens within the Star Wars universe.
• Star Wars Rebels is a TV series from the Star Wars franchise.

But if you look at these two articles, you'll see that the term Star Wars is italicized in both cases.

There is another thing I don't get: the paragraph in the guideline is named "Series titles", with MOS:SERIESTITLE as the shortcut. But the text appears to be about media franchises and fictional universes, not series.

- Manifestation (talk) 17:31, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

A series is a kind of media franchise, and "Star Wars media franchise" should have the first two words italicized because the franchise is named for the film, and we italicize the names of major works such as films. "Sherlock Holmes stories" is not italicized, because it's named for a character, not a book called Sherlock Holmes. pburka (talk) 17:49, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Exactly.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:38, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

@Pburka and SMcCandlish: Ok, so franchises named after a piece of media should be italicized, such as The Lion King or Street Fighter. Franchises named after a character, or something else, should *not* be italicized, such as Batman (franchise), James Bond, or Marvel Universe. Am I right? - Manifestation (talk) 21:10, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

The way I read it, the title of a series of franchise should be capitalized, and a name of a group of them which is not shouldn't be. QuicoleJR (talk) 21:19, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

@Manifestation: Yes, except for Batman, which is the name of a comic book, so could reasonably be italicized. I think it's impossible to really distinguish between the comic book and the character, so I'd lean towards italicization. Same for, e.g., Winnie the Pooh. pburka (talk) 21:23, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

No, the series should always be italicized, it's just when the series shares the name of the title character, you don't italicize it when the prose is only referring to the character itself. Allusions to the Batman series should be capitalized. Allusions to the Batman character himself should not. Sergecross73 msg me 23:35, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

We don't italicize things like "James Bond films" or "Marvel Universe". "Batman series" is only italicized because Batman is a (comic) book. pburka (talk) 00:56, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

We don't? The article James Bond literally opens up as "The James Bond series focuses..." I didn't mean we italicize the literal word "series", I meant we italicize the actual name of the series. Sergecross73 msg me 01:59, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

We don't, if we're following MOS:SERIESTITLE. pburka (talk) 02:19, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

List of James Bond films doesn't even follow it, and it's featured status. I typically haven't observed this in the video game content area either, like Sonic the Hedgehog, also featured status. Either someone is misunderstanding it or it's pretty poorly enforced... Sergecross73 msg me 02:25, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

This was discussed quite extensively in 2015 at Talk:List of James Bond novels and short stories/Archive 2#Small reversion, but I honestly don't remember what the outcome was. pburka (talk) 02:31, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes. I don't know why anyone's making it more difficult than it really is: italicize the titles of major works (novels, series, etc.), including when they appear in (or as) the name of a franchise. It is no more complicated than that.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:58, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

MOS:5LETTER and conjuctions

It presently states: Short coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor ; also for, yet, so when used as conjunctions) [are not capitalized]. Immediately after is a similar rule about short prepositions, and it specifies four letters or fewer. I.e., we capitalize if 5 or longer. I think the conjunction rule should be specific in this regard as well, just for consistency's sake, and to remove any doubt or fighting about what "short" means. E.g., there are conjuctions of four letters (such as that in "We Eat that We Should Not Starve"; it's a bit obsolescent, but still encountered.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:02, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Using the word "short" here is weird since there are no long coordinating conjunctions. Each of the seven coordinating conjunctions (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) has either two or three letters. "That" on the other hand is a subordinating conjunction, which are always capitalized according to the previous section. I would simply change "Short coordinating conjunctions" to "Coordinating conjunctions". Darkday (talk) 06:31, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

RfC about capitalizing after dash or colon

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#RfC on capitalization after a colon or dash – involves MOS:TITLES.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:08, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Should all exhibitions be free of italics (or quotes)?

I noted that Camp: Notes on Fashion is italicised, and our guidance here (MOS:NEITHER) says that as an exhibition, it should not be:

* Exhibitions, concerts, and other events: the world's fairs, Expo 2010, Cannes Film Festival, Burning Man, Lollapalooza

I was going to change the article, but I hesitate. While it feels like that line makes sense for the exhibitions that are events, especially collective events like the ones listed, for an exhibition that behaves more like an essay or a thesis—a creative output—italics feel more appropriate. Do editors here have opinions? — HTGS (talk) 21:56, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

It's a bit confusing, but you also have in MOS:MAJORWORK the following: Named exhibitions (artistic, historical, scientific, educational, cultural, literary, etc. – generally hosted by, or part of, an existing institution such as a museum or gallery), but not large-scale exhibition events. So Camp: Notes on Fashion seems to fit this. Gonnym (talk) 22:03, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, an exhibition that is a "work" of someone in a sense gets the italics, but something like Comic-Con International or a trade expo does not. We probably need a cross-reference from that line item at MOS:NEITHER to MOS:MAJORWORK to avoid future confusion. The problem here is that the cross-referencing is just one-way.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:28, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. Johnbod (talk) 13:32, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

 Done: [2]. People should feel free to copyedit it, but it seems pretty reasonable.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:58, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you all! Exactly as my intuition told me it should be, and all is again well in the universe. — HTGS (talk) 03:57, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Short film title question

Resolved

Short films are italicized.TlonicChronic (talk) 01:13, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

At {{IMDb title}}, the instructions for the quotes parameter claim that MOS:TITLE states that quotes should be used for short films. Can I assume that it did say that at one point, but has since been updated to recommend italics, in which case {{IMDb title}} is in need of an update? If so, I am unable to perform it myself. It seems to be the sole reason for the existence of the quotes parameter. Thanks! 1980fast (talk) 18:55, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

That is incorrect. Short films are still films and use italics. Gonnym (talk) 19:47, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, epsiodes of TV shows (and of similar things, like podcast series) go in quotes. But a short film like Pool Sharks (1915) goes in italics.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:48, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you both! That is exactly as I would have thought. The incorrect text on the template really threw me for a loop. 1980fast (talk) 01:15, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Minor note, 1980fast: you are actually able to edit the guidance at {{IMDb title}}, as the documentation (everything in green) is transcluded from Template:IMDb title/doc, and not part of the template structure itself. Not an issue now, but perhaps useful in future. — HTGS (talk) 23:37, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing that out! I didn't know this, and I completely missed the relevant controls, but I see them now. 1980fast (talk) 02:54, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Title of an article about a song

There is currently a discussion about the proper formatting of the title of an article about a song. It's at Talk:Sex (I'm A...)#Proposed rename. Interested editors are encouraged to contribute their views on this question. Please post there instead of here, to keep the discussion all in one place. Thanks. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 11:16, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Capitalizing compound prepositions

The rule on compound prepositions is not a part of any style guide outside of Wikipedia that I've seen, and I believe it should be removed. The example given, Time Out of Mind, seems incorrect to me: it implies a noun phrase "Time Out" that is "of Mind". I believe the correct capitalization should be "Time out of Mind". It seems like someone possibly misremembered a rule they were taught on compound prepositions, which can either mean a preposition that is a compound word consisting of two prepositions (such as "within"), which are generally capitalized as they are longer than four letters. "Compound preposition" here is being used to refer to any to adjacent adpositions, in which case normal title casing rules should apply. NYT has an exception for emphasized words, but in cases such as "Time out of Mind" or "Fish out of Water", out is not emphasized. TlonicChronic (talk) 01:11, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

It does seem off to me, but because I claim no expertise, I found from this Stack Exchange question, the following point, which seems true, and may well be the goal of the rule:

If you lower-cased all phrases people have called compound prepositions, you'd have The World according to Garp, which is clearly wrong. – Peter Shor Jul 25, 2018 at 21:02

— HTGS (talk) 00:34, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

"According" is an adverb (-ing words aren't ever adpositions), and should always be capitalized. Either way, it doesn't matter, as "according" is over four letters, which isn't a rule I love, but is standard most places. TlonicChronic (talk) 14:37, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

To be clear, this is about the titles of works. Most reliable source do capitalize these words in the titles of works. I'm not sure what style guides might have to say about it, but it seems to be the common practice. older ≠ wiser 15:03, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree most sources do for the Bojack episode, but I think a lot of times the first preposition is actually in a verb phrase "Climb Up with Grace" or a noun phrase, etc., or they're just capitalizing every word. Either way, that should fall under common reference, it shouldn't have it's own rule on Wikipedia. I don't intend to fight you on every page, for what it's worth. I mostly think the rule is incorrect, and I would like to change the Charles Lloyd record, as I'm standardizing the ECM pages. TlonicChronic (talk) 15:18, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

I might be wrong here. I looked up articles titled "fish out of water" and they do all seem to capitalize "out". TlonicChronic (talk) 15:26, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

I think I figured out what's going on: this has nothing to do with compound prepositions; some editorials capitalize "Out" and "Up" even when used as a preposition. But typically "out" and "up" are only capitalized in a verb- or noun-phrase, not a compound preposition. TlonicChronic (talk) 15:46, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

I dunno about these arcane grammatical distinctions, but if you look at reliable sources (i.e., prose with editorial review, not just list and headlines or fanzine-type materials), they will typically capitalize these in titles of works. older ≠ wiser 15:50, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

I suppose that makes sense; "out of" implies a verb-phrase "(to) be out". I could see all compound prepositions implying an inherent verb after the noun. I no longer feel competent to make a decision on this. TlonicChronic (talk) 16:16, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

If you look up the Charles Lloyd album, ECM album capitalizes every word in English, AllMusic capitalizes the Out always, and a lot of the jazz publications with lower case "out" and "of" as they are short prepositions. TlonicChronic (talk) 15:47, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Out is more often an adjective or adverb; as a preposition, it's a contraction of the prepositional phrases out of ("run out the doorway") or out in ("I'm going out back"), and in many constructions leans toward colloquial/dialectal ("took my groceries out the car"). I've read almost every style guide ever, and I don't recall one suggesting to lower-case compound prepositions in this sense of that term (i.e. multi-word prepositional phrases) as a particular class. Those styles that lower-case all prepositions, even long and uncommon ones like alongside, would lowercase these as well, simply as members of the prepositional class. Whether an argument can be made in a particular case that Out in a title is being used prepositionally (alone or as part of a prepositional phrase) and so should qualify for lower-casing under MOS:5LETTER's general principle, there is simply no community appetite for such hair-splitting, as I've learned the hard way over the years in a lot of contentious RMs. This clearly falls under an enumerated exception anyway: Apply our five-letter rule (above) for prepositions except when a significant majority of current, reliable sources that are independent of the subject consistently capitalize, in the title of a specific work, a word that is frequently not a preposition, such as "Like" and "Past". The use of those two words was as examples not as a complete list, and out is "a word that is frequently not a preposition", and in most work titles we're going to encounter is going to qualify under "a significant majority of current, reliable sources that are independent of the subject consistently capitalize [it] in the title of [that] specific work". That is to say, the MoS rules already have this covered, and they defer to independent RS usage regarding a specific work, even if some of us would have preferred a more hard-line consistency being imposed on short prepositions. That horse is simply long out of the barn (or "out the barn" if you prefer).

Testy aside: This "follow the sources" exceptionalism sometimes has stupid results when applied to style instead of to facts, like Spider-Man: Far From Home with an over-capitalized from, which happened only because almost all the "reliable sources" are not truly independent, but are entertainment press, beholden entirely to the entertainment industry's advertising money, and who bend over backward to mimic stylizations preferred by trademark holders. It's dumb because if this were a work of great cinema, it would garner coverage in film and media and other academic journals, and they would near-universally render it Spider-Man: Far from Home. The "From" result we're stuck with at least for now is a classic WP:Common-style fallacy, of mistaking the style of one tiny segment of sources, mostly following the same style guide (AP Stylebook) or derivatives that track it closely, while ignoring all other style approaches across all other publication types, and doing so simply because the head-count number of such publications in that one sector that bothered covering the subject more often is larger. This is closely related to the WP:Specialized-style fallacy, under the confusion of which, as just one example, birders tried to force Wikipedia to capitalize all common (vernacular) names of bird species because it was typically done that way by ornithological publishers, never mind that nearly no one else (newspapers, dictionaries, encyclopedias, not even general-science journals when publishing ornithological papers) did so. And that was 8 solid years of drama and disruption. People like to complain that "style doesn't matter" and "this MoS stuff is a distraction" and "it's all just trivia", but the ones who do so are usually the first to latch onto a personal style pecadillo and fight half to death to get their way. End screed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:53, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you TlonicChronic (talk) 18:35, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Sorry for the disruption. I'm used to Chicago, which doesn't capitalize any, and I outside the NYT, which always capitalizes out, up, off, and a couple others, I have never seen anyone capitalized out when used as a preposition outside a verbal phrase before today. If you have happen to a minute, could you fill me in on why multi-word prepositions get capitalized or point me in a good direction? I was never taught about it in college and I only have Chicago on me and S&W on me, not blue book, and I can't find anything online, and you've definitely read more style guides than I have. TlonicChronic (talk) 18:50, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

If I could ask one more (unrelated) question, does the whole possessive noun get linked, or should the "'s" stay unlinked? You seem like a good person to ask. TlonicChronic (talk) 19:26, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

@TlonicChronic: Well, I don't really have the time for poring over oodles of style manuals to quote them, and these days I only keep a few current ones around (my old hobby of trying to collect them all and update to new editions of each was expensive and took up a lot of room). I'm not sure that a "style guide X says this but style guide Y says that" analysis would mean much on this (though they can be useful on some questions). The facts we have to deal with in this particular matter are that 1) in most titles of works (at least modern ones) most non-academic publishers (magazines, newspaper, blogs, popular-culture book writers, etc.) are going to capitalize "Out" because frankly most of the writers of such material can't tell when it's a prepositional use of the word in the first place; 2) for this kind of question in particular, there was an RfC that concluded to permit upper-casing of words like Out and Past (those that are often not used as prepositions or recognized as them by the average reader) if most sources about a particular work capitalized them in the case of that work. This was the decision because so many sources capitalize these words in so many titles of works, that editors were rebelling and readers probably surprised at titles being in forms like Bat out of Hell when they expected Bat Out of Hell and all the sources we were citing used the "Out" spelling, too. That is, the consensus was to forgo total rule consistency in favor of less astonishment. Not everyone's happy with that, but that's what compromise is, really: neither side gets everything they want [the other side here really wants nothing short of the close mimicry of every nuance of every title and other trademark], but both get a middle ground they can more or less live with.

As for the link question, I think you're asking whether to do [[Einstein]]'s versus [[Einstein's]] versus [[Einstein|Einstein's]]; it's the first, because the second won't work for most names (depends on someone having created a redirect for that case specifically), and the third is redundant markup. Same with basic plurals: [[cat]]s not [[cats]] or [[Cat|cats]]; complex plurals, where the base word changes, have to be piped: [[Dichotomy|dichotomies]]. Other suffixes are supported by the short format: [[patron]]ize.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:27, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

thank you! TlonicChronic (talk) 03:33, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Tools for adjusting capitalization in citations?

While not the norm, it is common for published materials to have titles and the names of subdivisions in all caps. Are there wiki tools for changing such text in citations to sentence case? If such tools exist, should this article mention them? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:57, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

I use User:WikiMasterGhibif/capitalize.js which converts a selected string to lowercase. Far from perfect (it doesn't deal with diacritics), it at least decreases the amount of manual adjustments. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 00:52, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

I use an add-on called TitleCase in Firefox. I did a while ago make a Phabricator request for the function in AWB (phab:T337483). A few subscribers may help, though I may need to cut some code to make it happen :-) Neils51 (talk) 06:19, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for both those hints. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:06, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Competing proposals for change to MOS:THETITLE

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#"The" and periodicals. There are at least four different change proposals floating around in that not very coherent thread, all predicated on the notion that it's confusing to use The New York Times but Los Angeles Times to match the actual titles of the publications (plus a claim that it's somehow too hard to figure out what the actual title of the publication is).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:15, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

MOS:TITLECAPS footnote to handle symbols substituting for words

Resolved

 – Implemented

MOS:TITLECAPS says (in part):

Always capitalized: When using title case, the following words should be capitalized:

• The first and last word of the title (e.g. A Home to Go Back To)

The proposal here is to add a foonote to address unusual cases that MOS presently does not account for, leading to some confusion about what "word" means in the above instruction:

Always capitalized: When using title case, the following words should be capitalized:

• The first and last word of the title (e.g. A Home to Go Back To)

[... rest of page ...]

Notes

[... other footnotes ...]

This follows on from a fairly extensive discussion at Talk:Sex (I'm A...)#Proposed rename – to "Sex (I'm a ...)" and "Talk:Sex (I'm a ...)", to comply with both MOS:ELLIPSIS and the actual intent of MOS:TITLECAPS (which was never to capitalize mid-sentence usage of the indefinite or definite articles, or short prepositions). It is desirable to clarify the MoS on this point before the WP:RM discussion, since MoS's lack of clarity on the question would likely result in the RM's failure to come to consensus in the first place, though the pre-RM discussion there has been productive. I've attempted to account for every variation of this sort of thing, so that no other edge cases come up without MoS addressing them already (including emoji, which are increasingly showing up in titles of songs, videos, social media posts, even articles).

The one thing it does not do is recommend that a title that starts with an ellipsis should treat that ellisis as the first word: "... and Justice for All". This is because "... And Justice for All" clearly dominates in independent source material (when it bothers to include the ellipsis at all) [3], most likely because it is more recognizable as a title that way, and it does not lead to the problem of lower-cased "... and" beginning a sentence about the song. Someone has already semi-researched matters like this [4] with Chicago Manual of Style, AP Stylebook, and usage in The New York Times, which all agree on the "What in the Name of ...?" format given above, i.e. treating "the" as not the last "word" – but without addressing a leading ellipsis. The author of that particular article suggested using "...and Justice for All". However, the case for doing that seems very weak when independent source usage is examined; the only thing it has going for it is a rather artificial consistency with ellipsis at the end (which no one would notice except in a weird two-ellipses title like "... The Lambs, and Sloths, and Carp, and Anchovies, and Orangutans, and..."), but coming at the very high cost of consistency with all other titles which of course start upper-case (even in sentence-case citations, in which a final word in a title would not). PS: Our own article on the Metallica song is at "...And Justice for All (song)", but should move to "... And Justice for All (song)", with a space, to comply with MOS:ELLIPSIS.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:53, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

This all makes perfect sense to me. I think the way you've written this is comprehensive enough to cover all the cases, or at least all the ones I can think of, so thanks for putting in the effort. I hope other editors agree with this suggested enhancement to the style guide. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 01:08, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

SMcCandlish, I sign off on this also, it's well-reasoned and well-written. Remsense留 17:57, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

I would like to encourage other editors to take the time to read through SMcCandlish's proposal above. It's actually pretty straightforward. An example would be the article title that started this discussion. "Sex (I'm A...)" should be renamed to "Sex (I'm a ...)", with a lowercase "a", and a space after the "a". The three periods stand in for a word, so it's as if "a" is not the last word of the title. The rest of the proposal elaborates on this and covers other, similar situations. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 23:25, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

No one seems to have issues with or questions about it, but it's still mid-holidays for a lot of people, and there is no hurry. I figure let this sit for a week or so longer, before implementing it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:56, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Okay, waited another week with no issues raised, so I've implemented this, exactly as given above.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:36, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Weird exception (that we don't need to codify a rule about)

I recently ran across a permissible (call it WP:IAR) exception to not capitalizing "a" "an" or "the" in mid-title: It is Index, A History of the, in which the first word has been transparently moved to the middle for humorous effect. Per WP:MOSBLOAT, we have no reason to codify this in MOS:TITLES even as a footnote, since there is not likely to be another case of this any time soon, and there's no evidenced dispute about it. Just thought it worth mentioning here "for the record".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:15, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

The case for newspaper articles

What case should the titles of newspaper articles be in - title or sentence? And does it make a difference if they are quoted in an article or used as a source? Examining MOS:TITLECAPS hasn't helped me decide, so perhaps that could be tweaked, to help those like me who are slow of wit. Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:46, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Either is acceptable (aiming for consistency within the article); see MOS:ALLCAPS: "Reduce newspaper headlines and other titles from all caps to title case – or to sentence case if required by the citation style established in the article." Doremo (talk) 17:50, 12 March 2024 (UTC)