Ghyll talk:Quezlarian Numerals

All new pages to be capitalised properly by decree of sbp now, k thx. If you see any phantoms that are going to cause problems in the future, please fix them! --Sean B. Palmer 18:43, 12 Sep 2004 (EDT)

Is "Roman numerals" capitalized? That's was the whole point of this entry, ten months ago. --Morbus Iff 19:23, 12 Sep 2004 (EDT)

Incidentally, are you advocating all pages be all ucwords? Why? I'm not sure that's right. --Morbus Iff 19:24, 12 Sep 2004 (EDT)

In seeing your other comments, it looks like you are. I'm steadfastly against it. Some things are just not proper names. "Awal shrinkage" should not be capitalized, any more than the "Luminous text". The distinction I've seen, and have been keeping conscious of, is between proper names and not. Bobby Shwarmph yes, Awal shrinkage, no. So, all references to "Council for Quezlarian Research" now needs a capital "For"? Forcing ucwords on all wiki pages is the equivalent, IMO, of CamelCase. The removal of CamelCase in wikis, one of the "good things", was to make reading entries better and more English like. Implementing a forced ucword seems backwards: another arbitrary decision that breaks the rules of English, imposed because one player can't keep things straight. --Morbus Iff 19:30, 12 Sep 2004 (EDT)

In fact, it's the opposite: I can't keep them straight because they break the rules of English! The rationale is that the page names form the titles of the entries, and "[i]n most house styles, all the major words in an English title are capitalized — 'major' meaning the first word, the last word, and everything in between except articles, conjunctions, and prepositions" - Lynch on Titles (which means that the "for" in your example doesn't need to be capitalised). In-page references probably should be capitalised normally though. --Sean B. Palmer 19:31, 12 Sep 2004 (EDT)

But therein lies the rub: how are we actually using the page titles? In most cases, they're being used inside a sentence, so the natural inclination of a person is the follow the non-title rules of English, as we've been doing. I think it's absolutely insane to force users to link to a page one way (ucwords) and then force (or, for the grammatically annoying, do ourselves) a different title for the link itself through the use of wiki syntax. The intent of wikis is to colloborate on the body of entries, and that's where all concessions should take placed: in making it easier for the user to do what needs to be not. Users are thinking in sentences, not titles, and requiring them to redouble their efforts by thinking both ways (one for the link, one for the title) is obscene. Although a lack of (immediately findable) written policy, this appears to be how Wikipedia handles it (Mushroom_cloud, Nuclear_weapon) and also Encyclopedia Britannica. --Morbus Iff 19:52, 12 Sep 2004 (EDT)

The most concessionlessful approach would be to have [[Quezlarian numerals]] look up similar page titles in the wiki, and link to any that share its case. But in the absence of that, I'd rather do what's correct English than to have people be lazy; by extension, your argument says that it's alright to use txt spk in entries, leave out punctuation and apostrophes, and not capitalise anywhere since that's easier for the user too. Why have people link at all--too difficult! Our highly academic and scholarly lexicon has been a shining example of pedantry since its inception--correct quoting style, the Morbus removing whitespace hither and thither, anality in every nook and cranny--and this construct should not be any different. Therefore, we ought to use a [[Quezlarian Numerals|Quezlarian numerals]] [Changing over to BBC World Service! Rise for the national anthem!] syntax throughout the wiki. --Sean B. Palmer 20:03, 12 Sep 2004 (EDT)