Talk:Civil rights movement/Archive 12

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Archive 5 ← Archive 10 Archive 11 Archive 12 Archive 13 Archive 14

Requested move 23 November 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: pages moved! After thoroughly going though the discussion and weighting the strength of each individuals argument with respect to Wikipedia's naming policy, I've decided to move this page. Opinions seems to be divided but upon closer examinations in line with our guidelines and policy, there's consensus for this page to be moved. Any opposite view may be aired here. Regards! (closed by page mover) Mahveotm (talk) 22:39, 1 December 2017 (UTC)


– Per WP:NCCAPS, the title should be in sentence case, "unless the title phrase is a proper name that would always occur capitalized, even in the middle of a sentence". In the case of this title, the evidence I've seen is that it is not treated as a proper name when found in running text in books. For example: [1][2][3][4][5]  — Amakuru (talk) 14:08, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

  • Strong oppose for the 1954-1968 and popular culture articles, Support the 1896, etc., which weren't movements and should never have been upper-cased. The Civil Rights Movement on Wikipedia pages refers consistently to the 1954-1968 movement, which is a proper name on the same order as American Civil War, World War II, etc. for a major historical event which has a clear beginning and end, and that was brought about, strategized, and directed by the same leaders and strategists. The name has been stable since the article's 2002 start. The Civil Rights Movement is a proper noun ("A proper noun is a noun that in its primary application refers to a unique entity, such as London, Jupiter, Sarah, or Microsoft, as distinguished from a common noun, which usually refers to a class of entities") and stands as the premier movement in United States history. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:10, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
    Whether or not something is a proper name is determined by looking at its usage in reliable sources, as per WP:NCCAPS. American Civil War and World War II are proper names because almost all sources capitalise them, not because of any particular attributes such as unique history or leaders and strategists. But the sources I quoted above show that, for running text, the term is not usually capitalised. Your comment appears to be based on personal opinion rather than reliable sources. See also Rwandan genocide, Montgomery bus boycott, Mau movement etc. for similar examples of things which could be capitalised, and occasionally are, but which are not treated as proper names on Wikipedia. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 15:37, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
    Wikipedia has, since 2002, accepted the Civil Rights Movement as a proper noun, even if it is not consistent in book texts. To not want to lower-case such a major and long-standing article's name is much more than just personal opinion, but implies a common sense approach to Wikipedia's coverage of this world-changing event. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:51, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment - following a request on my talk page I have notified the WikiProjects mentioned at the top of this page. These are:
  • Comment - I didn't mention this in my rationale above, but an ngram on the two terms also shows the non-capitalised form predominating in books.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:53, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
  • This one isn't measureable, as the wording 'African-American Civil Rights Movement' is almost unique to Wikipedia, and this page could better be named Civil Rights Movement, which now redirects here, which also cannot be accurately measured because of the wider use of the term when applied to other "movements". And, as mentioned, the earlier movement pages that you list should, yes, be lower-cased, just not the 1954-1968 pages. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:56, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
Well, we can always add in "civil rights movement" variants to the ngram as well, and they show "civil rights movement" (all lower) as the clear winner.[6] I wouldn't particularly object to renaming this Civil rights movement - the current title, with the date range and everything, is horribly unwieldy for such an important topic, but I was primarily coming at it from the capitalisation issue here. Note the very different-looking ngram if you search on "American Civil War" instead.[7]
"Clear winner"? As mentioned, the name is unmeasurable, as many things are inaccurately called 'civil rights movement' in one form or another. Wikipedia even has a page Civil rights movements. The dates in the title are not "horribly unwieldly", the Civil Rights Movement is correctly defined as lasting from 1954 to 1968, the years between Brown v. Board of Education and the 1968 Fair Housing Act. Randy Kryn (talk) 16:09, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
No matter how you measure, sources don't much cap it. Dicklyon (talk) 03:09, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Those sources that support Kryn's capitalization often don't support his dates--some list the movement as going to 1965, some to 1972, some to 1985. Those that support his dates often don't support his capitalization. Amakuru is being quite reasonable.

The movement doesn't have a narrow and continuous set of leaders as claimed, either. Martin Luther King was not an activist in 1954. (Bayard Rustin was, but he wasn't involved in Brown v. Board of Ed., and was largely out of the movement by 1968.) GPRamirez5 (talk) 17:45, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

  • I know, the years are all over the place. Good arguments can be made for 1955-1968, and even for 1959-1968. To place its start at Brown v. Board seems, to me, tangential to the soon-evolving nonviolent movement. But the 1954-1968 dates are also arguably correct, and are what we have as the present article title (which is why Civil Rights Movement as a title would make more sense). Yes, for the most part, it had the same top leaders - those who ran the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and, later, those who started out running the major events of the student movement. The leaders and leading strategists of these two groups then came together and took on the movement, as a team, from there. Dates aside (and I don't think the world always agrees on when World War I or World War II started) this has been a proper noun on Wikipedia since 2002. The upper-case fits the topic and stylistically correctly describes the history changing effect of the subject of this article. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:17, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
  • To the closer, I wanted to get this wall-of-text in before any piling-on starts. Even if that extremely narrow (or narrowly extreme) thing about "consistency" is taken at face value - meaning that near 100% agreement from every source up-and-down the timeline is needed or the topic gets downgraded - this subject has been, for the vast majority of the time, seen and experienced as a proper noun by Wikipedia readers and editors. For 15 years hundreds of thousands of people have come to read parts of this article. They've accepted that the title reflects the fact that the 1950s and 1960s Civil Rights Movement is a proper noun. Its exact years and definition vary with the sources, which disagree about proper-noun status. Those who know that it is a proper noun call it what it is, just as Wikipedia has and does. Notwithstanding what the restrictive guideline (not policy) says, the great thing is that Wikipedia has a corrective tool built into the system!. Its wording, purposely put at the top of every guideline page to proclaim a front-and-center check-and-balance on guidelines going overboard on adherence, is as important to Wikipedia as any of the first amendment rights in the U.S. Constitution are important to America and the world (rights which, of course, made the Civil Rights Movement possible): "This guideline documents an English Wikipedia naming convention. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply." If this RM seems to have gone in favor of lower-casing the name of this unprecedented benchmark of human and social history - the 1950s and 1960s Civil Rights Movement - please consider that Wikipedia puts our exception clause front and center on every one of our guideline pages. First, we are told that there are generally accepted standards: "...generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow", and yes, the nom and the editors that agree with the nomination of these two particular articles have a good point in that sources don't always consider this a proper noun. But Wikipedia readers get it, and they have since 2002. Please consider and apply "best treated with common sense" ("best treated" - Wikipedia says that the very best way to treat a guideline is with common sense) because "occasional exceptions may apply." Given this movement's place in history, and the mostly-stable article title - a 15 year acceptance by Wikipedia readers of the title as a proper noun - this seems to be a place to consider applying the check-and-balance. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:55, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
    • To the closer, Randy Kryn has quite a history of opposing conformance to our own MOS when it involves topics that he is passionate about. I think it's great that he's passionate about civil rights and civil rights leaders, but I don't really get how he thinks that justifies exceptions for the topics of his special interest. Dicklyon (talk) 03:13, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
      • To the closer and Dicklyon, that's like saying that someone would be "passionate" if they opposed a lower-casing of 'world war ii'. The Civil Rights Movement is a proper noun describing a set-number of events and circumstances which occurred between 1954 and 1968, and is used as such in books, articles, and organizations such 'Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement'. That some authors or journalists have not done so does not justify demoting it to a lower-cased grouping of 'civil rights movements' (which already have an article here). Removing its importance on Wikipedia would harm the project, which is one reason why an allowable 'exception' is asked for to a guideline which itself is so restrictive that it would allow for things like this to be taken seriously. And thank you for your compliment, appreciated. Randy Kryn (talk) 09:55, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
        • Why do you keep ignoring sources? MOS:CAPS says "Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia." I'm pretty sure World War II qualifies for caps by this measure, while civil rights movement clearly does not. I'm pretty sure WP is not going to harm the movement by this, just as all those other reliable sources have not harmed it by writing about it. And of course, finding it capped as part of the proper name of an organization, or the title of a book, or a section heading or table entry, has no bearing on the issue. Dicklyon (talk) 21:43, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Strong support – I proposed this before, but Randy Kryn and friends blocked it, based on this belief that capping things he holds dear, such as "this unprecedented benchmark of human and social history", lend them more status or validity or something. It's very clear that sources do not support treating "civil rights movement" or these variants of it as proper names, so per WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS, we should not be capping them. Time to fix this, rather than making up WP-specific proper names like "'African-American Civil Rights Movement". Dicklyon (talk) 03:35, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
    Dicklyon, please clarify what you mean by "and friends". Implication seems to be meatpuppets, which insults all of the wise sentient meat that came by on their own to support a logical title. Randy Kryn (talk) 09:23, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
    Yes, I'm sure the folks you canvassed were all fine people with the best of intentions, like you. Dicklyon (talk) 15:46, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
    Zing! If I did that, my apologies. Remember, I was a first timer to RM or, for that matter, to any WP behind-the-scenes discussion. You threw me in cold by, from my perspective, "what?, saying the Civil Rights Movement is not a proper noun? someone actually wants to diminish it?" To me that's like diminishing World War II or any other definable and determinative large-scale human-initiated event. So I went into the very long discussion, where much was discussed (including much of, from my point-of-view, the timeline and direct connections between the determinative events of the movement, showing it was the same people running it the entire time) not knowing how any of this worked and that we were arguing from two entirely different directions. In the process, both of us eventually got a slap-on-the-wrist ban. And then I quickly got a serious ban because I didn't know the rules. Probably needed a three-day break right about then. And within that process I found an enjoyable Wikipedian, someone I actually get along with and enjoy. The rare times when we can compromise or go right off the bat in the same direction, it usually ends well. Yet back then, and I haven't read the discussion since, wasn't it an argument about the same subject, if the Civil Rights Movement was a proper noun or not. In other words, is it a name that means something? The other named pages in the nom, of course they should be lower-cased, and I see nobody making an argument that they shouldn't be lower-cased. It's only the 1950s and 1960s movement that can be claimed to be a proper noun. And in that last RM, the closer decided to keep it exactly as it was. That it was okay for Wikipedia to recognize this title as a proper noun. It held up against a rushing tide that time, and, if I recall, got that fair no consensus outcome. I'm sorry this has been brought up again, it's been doing fine for an even longer time this time. But yes, although this name was pretty much stuck-together using two proper nouns, African-American and Civil Rights Movement, I can see how people are arguing that the entire name is one long proper noun, which it isn't. It's two proper nouns confusingly stuck-together, so the discussion again centers on the nounness of the title, but maybe again from two different directions. So, long post shorter, I maybe did canvas that time without understanding the rules of the road. Since then I've been a semi-regular on RM and other political, ah, I mean, behind the scenes, pages here, and have learned a lot. Thank you for introducing me to this strange backstage world. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:27, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Strong support – (sorry, Randy Kryn) – I have to support the nom, as argued. Having fun! Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 08:04, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose - The article title has experienced constant moving. I would like to place a moratorium on the change to this article title until a more stable one is determined. This proposed move if approved will constitute the 19th move. "African-American Civil Rights Movement (1954–68)" and the 18 unique variations have all proven unstable. Including variations that closely resemble the proposed article titles listed above.
We're nearly averaging one move per year of these variations. And it creates hundreds of Wikipedia:Double redirects throughout Wikipedia each time that have to be fixed. And no, a bot does not fix them. I know from experience. Mitchumch (talk) 10:54, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
Didn't realize it was unstable, thanks. The first name used on the page is Civil Rights Movement, which seems to be the common name of the subject. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:02, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
The instability does support the idea that this is a descriptive title, not a proper name. We should at least fix the case, and might as well leave the years as is (I believe our style is to NOT elide digits, and to use en dash where appropriate, which knocks out all but (1954–1968) and (1955–1968), yes?). Dicklyon (talk) 15:46, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
True. Most of those variants just seem to be either just violations of MOS guidelines re dates and dashes, or violations of grammar (i.e. MOS:HYPHEN), so there wouldn't be much of a case for ever moving back to any of those, unless the sitewide guidlines also change. The only other possible moves I could see would be (1) to remove the date range from the 54-68 edition, because it is already primary topic anyway, and (2) to drop the "African-American" altogether. I could imagine supporting one or both of those, but right now the discussion is solely regarding the casing, for simplicity's sake.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:36, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

"I would like to place a moratorium on the change to this article title until a more stable one is determined." But who will determine it? The back-and-forth itself indicates that we are unable to reach a consensus on this—Although the substance of the debate usually comes down to Randy Kryn versus Everyone Else. We are basically in an elongated edit war. Do we need an arbitrator?

Half of the alterations are about the dates, so I propose this compromise: The name of the article is changed to the Civil Rights Era (capitalized) and the dates are removed. The model is the articles for the Age of Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment. There are no dates in those page titles because, as with mid-20th century civil rights, there's no consensus on the dates in the literature.

The situation is also too complex for this civil conflict framing. Unlike a war, this isn't a unitary act of state—the government was often divided against itself, not only with State gov. versus Federal, but also White House versus Congress. The antagonists were not fixed: LBJ was an opponent of the movement in 1954, an ally in 1964, and—according to Martin Luther King, as well as SNCC—an opponent again in 1968. The antagonists were also not deposed, as in a war: George Wallace continued to govern Alabama up through the 1980s. This is a period of sprawling socio-political change with immense consequences, but no easy definitions.GPRamirez5 (talk) 16:47, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

  • Support per WP:NCCAPS, MOS:CAPS (especially MOS:ISMCAPS), and WP:CONSISTENCY with the rest of the articles on events and movements where the entire string (aside from WP-inserted disambiguation) isn't treated as a capitalized proper name in the vast majority of reliable sources (we already know that RS usage is very mixed on this, not just as to capitalization (where it overwhelmingly leans lower-case [8]) but as to terminology, and definitions, including the date range – i.e., we know for a fact that this article is essentially an approximation and an arbitrary scope of our own devising, with a descriptive not proper-name title). This is obviously a common-noun phrase when we're dealing with this many movements in series with the same "name", none of which were actually named anything like this in their time ("African-American" wasn't current usage even in 1968). In short, these are descriptive titles (per WP:NPOVTITLE and WP:DESCRIPTDIS), not proper names, and the desire to capitalize them is a typical WP:Specialized-style fallacy, the urge to capitalize-for-emphasis, for "signification"; not doing that is the first rule of MOS:CAPS. This is a case where the closer needs to look even more closely than usual at the policy arguments and the lack of consistent treatment in sources, and ignore the heated invective.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  08:27, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

    Also support move of African-American Civil Rights Movement (1954–1968) to Civil rights movement (which already redirects to that article) per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. But this was proposed late in the discussion and might not have critical mass.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  19:36, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

  • Oppose per Mitchumch's comments above. There have been too many moves lately for these articles. --SouthernNights (talk) 00:44, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
    It was three years ago that the caps were last touched. What moves lately are concerning you? Dicklyon (talk) 00:53, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support. The majority of reliable sources use the lowercase per above. Frankly, this article should be moved to civil rights movement per CONCISE, seeing as it already redirects to this page. James (talk/contribs) 21:10, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
  • Support. It's not just that there's ample evidence of downcasing in reliable sources (outside title case in titles, of course). If the movement were unified and a traditional "institution" with a head office, etc, we might consider caps. But this movement refers to much more than that. And do we have a separate, institutionalised "Movement" for 1854–96? No. WP's practice is not to cap such items. Tony (talk) 01:45, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment: For some relevant background debate on RMs of this sort (and involving Randy Kryn, Dick_lyon, et al.), see User talk:SMcCandlish#Summary of years of repetitive policy debate about this stuff, which has not shifted at all. The précis: The argument for capitalizing things like this, even when the majority of sources clearly do not (but one narrow subset of sources does) is a combination of the WP:Specialized-style fallacy and an explicitly stated desire to capitalize "out of respect". This is a form of capitalization for emphasis, and the first rule of MOSCAPS is to not do that. It's also a WP:POV problem of bias toward the subject (even if a common bias the average editor will sympathize with – WP:SYSTEMICBIAS), as well as a WP:NOR and WP:NOT#ADVOCACY issue of declaring how English "should" work. See also Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Why S.A.W etc is removed after Hazrat Muhammad (S.A.W)? – attempts by Muslims to demand that WP always postfix Muhammad's name with "may peace be upon him" or a sigil for it, for precisely the same "out of respect" motivation. WP just does not do this; not by additional wording, not by over-stylization.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  19:47, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose per comments by Mitchumch & SouthernNights above. There have been too many moves already and that reflects a failure to get a consensus of more than 4 people. Rjensen (talk) 20:19, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Unseemly griping

Randy, no one likes to see sour-grapes editing after they didn't get their way in a title move request. Please desist. Also, concerning one of your hasty edits: can you please explain how something can be unsuccessfully accomplished"?

I see the term "negro" has been inserted in alternative names, introduced by "has also been called". May I suggest clarification in the tense ("formerly called") that this term is no longer mainstream? Many people would regard it as offensive, actually. Tony (talk) 04:14, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I disagree about your second point. The phrase "Negro revolution" was quite common at the time. See Message to the Grass Roots#The Black revolution and the Negro revolution for a counterpoint. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 04:58, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for re-capping Negro that I had downcased. Looking at n-grams I see you are right, so I learned something. It's interesting what a big blip there was in the mid 60s, and then the usage faded as "black" came to dominate. In that sense, Tony's right, too, that it's a "former" thing, mostly, since it dropped sharply a half century ago. Dicklyon (talk) 06:10, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I misunderstood Tony's message. I thought he was suggesting removing the phrases with Negro because they might be considered offensive. I completely missed the suggestion that they be described as historical terms. I think that would be appropriate. — MShabazz Talk/Stalk 18:42, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Tony, when they give you sour grapes, make sour grape juice. Thanks for catching the spelling mistake, appreciated. I did not add the 'Negro' language you point out (I know you probably know that but the way your comment is written it could look like I did). Randy Kryn (talk) 19:42, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I should have clarified that there were two separate themes in my post. No, "successfully accomplished" wasn't a misspelling; it was an error of logic on your part. Tony (talk) 02:37, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
Ah, I see what you mean, and have fixed the redundancy. I thought you meant that it had read 'unsuccessfully' instead of 'successfully' and, in either case, that you had already fixed it. Thanks for telling me about it. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:03, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Sending Federal examiners to register voters

  • A query about events. I have never been to America and I have no direct experience of these events, except via newspapers and television. African-American civil rights movement (1954–1968)#Voting Rights Act, 1965 says "Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ... authorized the Attorney General of the United States to send Federal examiners to replace local registrars.". Did the Federal authorities have to actually send Federal examiners? Or was the threat enough to make the southern state governments and their officials obey? Anthony Appleyard (talk) 09:50, 21 January 2018 (UTC)
  • And, what here is the difference between an examiner and a registrar? If they mean the same thing here, then use the same word, and avoid the confusing elegant variation. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 10:50, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Readable prose length

In the edit summaries (View history page) Coffee proposed that the article text be edited as readable prose length exceeds 100,000kb. Randy Kryn proposed that the riot sections be removed in response. Of course the latter point is absurd. Dr. King himself acknowledged that he was moved to begin the Poor People's Campaign because of the urban riots, and because some of the rioters spoke with him and told him to do more about poverty and the war (this is discussed in Beyond Vietnam, among other speeches 1967-68). The role of 1968 riots on passing the Fair Housing Act is well documented and consensed on. The riot sections are essential.-GPRamirez5 (talk) 16:05, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

  • Without deleting matter, it may be possible to split the article into two, African-American civil rights movement (1954–1959) and African-American civil rights movement (1960–1968) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anthony Appleyard (talk • contribs) 09:54, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
  • {new section). No need to split into two, although the "real" nonviolent Civil Rights Movement did occur between 1960-1968 (between the sit-ins and the Poor People's Campaign). I proposed getting rid of, or drastically trimming, the riot sections because they seem tangential to nonviolence and were not part of the movement. Maybe a brief mention about the riots impact on King's decision to mount his Poor People's Campaign could capsulize the history of the riots in a paragraph or two, but entire sections on the riots really don't belong in a page about the nonviolent Civil Rights Movement. I can see the viewpoint to include them, and some editors are adamant about it, so possibly at least a trim there, and I see that GPRamirez5 has made some good trims already on the page. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:13, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
    If the article is too long, it would be usual to turn it into a kind of "summary" article, with longer material split out into sub-articles on that specific topic. So perhaps the detail of the riots merit their own subarticle, but of course should still be summarized and the main points given in this main article too.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:22, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Some people will want the riots to be described in full, not summarized. Leave the riots in here, in full, until they can be moved to another article. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 16:13, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
  • We seem to have the old battle, inclusionists versus exclusionists. Often, one man's trivia or cruft is another man's important relevant matter. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 17:31, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
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