Talk:List of mayors of Finsbury

Untitled[edit]

Should it be Frederick John Barett?

There are a couple more queries here [1] requiring Original Research. Jackiespeel (talk) 17:48, 5 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 10 June 2017[edit]

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: Not moved. (non-admin closure). Anarchyte (work | talk) 06:42, 18 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

– This is an attempt to establish a consistent style across Category:Lists of mayors of places in England and its one subcategory Category:Lists of mayors of London boroughs. It follows on from this discussion which established the naming convention for London borough list articles as being "X in the London Borough of Y", which I don't think works for mayors. List of Mayors of Newham (etc.) is preferable to List of mayors of the London Borough of Newham (etc.) as it uses the official title. For evidence of usage see, e.g., here. The style being proposed is already the one most commonly used in the parent category and it also appears to comply with MOS:JOBTITLES. It might be worth looking at whether this style should apply more broadly across the Lists of mayors category tree. Ham II (talk) 17:04, 10 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: To me, this seems contrary to the advice given in MOS:JOBTITLES: "should be in lower case when used generically: Mitterrand was the French president or There were many presidents at the meeting." This is a list of mayors, not a list of Mayors, since it is not followed by a person's name, not referring to a specific person, and not treated as a proper name. —BarrelProof (talk) 04:06, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It is treated as a proper name in the following sources: "Details of the Mayor of Havering's engagements can be found below", "Normally, people ask for the Mayor to perform a certain function" (Lewisham), "Mr Watt-Ruffell had already announced his intention to resign as the Mayor of Margate", "Find out how you can contact or meet the Mayor" (Newham), "The Mayor of Slough, Ishrat Shah, has sent a letter to the Lord Mayor of Manchester", "As Mayor, my focus is on improving the lives of local people" (Tower Hamlets), "Cllr Graham Cundy was elected as Woking Borough's 44th Mayor". Ham II (talk) 07:12, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Two remarks:
1) In most (perhaps all but the last one) of those cases that you just identified, the phrase "the Mayor" is being used in reference to one specific person, not a category or group of people. In a list of mayors, that is not the case – it seems instead more like the phrase "many presidents".
2) Not all sources use the same style convention as Wikipedia. Wikipedia generally tries to avoid excess capitalization, which is not true of all other publications, and the Wikipedia MOS does not say to just use whatever form of capitalization styling seems the most popular.
However, I did find an article entitled List of Presidents of the United States, which had an RM discussion five years ago (found at Talk:List of Presidents of the United States/Archive 6#Requested move), and the article was not renamed after that discussion. I found the comments in that discussion to be worth reading. To me, they seem to confirm my understanding of what the MOS says. —BarrelProof (talk) 18:01, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Follow-up remark: When I spoke of whether the term is "treated as a proper name", I was referring to the WP:JOBTITLES discussion of "When the correct formal title is treated as a proper name", as in "Louis XVI was King of France". I was saying that I think that case does not apply here. It would seem proper to say "Christie Payne and Leslie James Harley served consecutive terms as Mayor of Finsbury", but not to say that "Among the Mayors of Finsbury have been Christie Payne and Leslie James Harley", because there is no correct formal title called "Mayors of Finsbury". It would also not be proper to say that "Finsbury's Mayors included Christie Payne and Leslie James Harley" or that "Louis XVI was the French King". —BarrelProof (talk) 23:38, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: Based on MOS:JOBTITLES. It's true that the Manual of Style is sometimes ignored because people think capitalization indicates the importance of a position, but our MoS is pretty clear that we should use lower case. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 23:29, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose—plural "mayors" is clearly generic, and needs to be downcased. Five queens of England; the Queen of England. Tony (talk) 08:19, 13 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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.

Requested move 29 July 2017[edit]

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: Not done(closed by non-admin page mover) Consensus in this RM and previous ones is clearly against the move. DrStrauss talk 17:29, 6 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

– This is an attempt to achieve capitalization consistency with the outcome of the recent RM at Talk:List of Lord Mayors of Birmingham and to achieve consistency within Category:Lists of mayors of places in England and Category:Lists of mayors of London boroughs. I recognize that this RM directly contradicts another one that I recently submitted at Talk:List of mayors of Bath and comments that I have made in other RMs in regard to MOS:JOBTITLES. However, the result of the recent discussion at Talk:List of Lord Mayors of Birmingham has produced an undesirable direct conflict between the format of our "List of mayors of X" and "List of Lord Mayors of X" articles. In the recent discussion at Talk:List of Lord Mayors of Birmingham, at least three people commented that they thought the previous outcomes of the RM discussions at Talk:List of mayors of Finsbury and Talk:List of mayors of Bath were incorrect and that they would have opposed those outcomes if they had noticed the discussions. This RM will give those editors a second bite at the apple. Lest I be considered an anti-capitalization zealot, I have filed this as a request to achieve consistency by capitalizing "Mayor" (and "Lord Mayor" by omission) in all (rather than none) of these article titles. —BarrelProof (talk) 15:36, 29 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ping @Ham II, SchreiberBike, and Tony1: from prior discussion at Talk:List of mayors of Finsbury. —BarrelProof (talk) 16:03, 29 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ping also @In ictu oculi and V2Blast: from prior discussion at Talk:List of mayors of Bath. —BarrelProof (talk) 16:06, 29 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ping also @Ebonelm, Blueboar, and Amakuru: from prior discussion at Talk:List of Lord Mayors of Birmingham. —BarrelProof (talk) 16:10, 29 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ping also @Anarchyte and Steven Crossin: as the closers of those three RM discussions. —BarrelProof (talk) 16:13, 29 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ping also @X4n6 and SMcCandlish: as people who commented after I remarked about these article titles in the thread recorded at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters/Archive 24. —BarrelProof (talk) 16:18, 29 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: If the style were changed to "List of Mayors of X" and "List of Lord Mayors of X", the capitalisation of "Mayor" in the first of these would still be inconsistent with Civic mayor of Doncaster and Civic mayor of Salford – and with the style generally used for mayors of places in other countries at Category:Lists of mayors. I would prefer to standardise the pages in Category:Lists of mayors of places in the United Kingdom to "Mayor of X" or "Lord Mayor of X", without the "List of" prefix. This sidesteps the question of whether the style should be "List of mayors of" or "List of Mayors of" as the word "mayor" would have to be capitalised as the first word of the article title. There would have to be a small number of exceptions:
1. List of Lord Mayors of London would have to stay as it is as there is a separate article for the Lord Mayor of London.
2. List of Mayors and Lord Mayors of Manchester might have to be split in two.
3. List of mayors of Tower Hamlets would change to Civic mayor of Tower Hamlets as there is a separate article on the directly elected Mayor of Tower Hamlets.

The relevant Wikidata items would have to be changed to reflect a change in scope for those items, as they would now be for, e.g., the office of the Mayor of Finsbury rather than for a Wikimedia list of mayors of Finsbury. Ham II (talk) 17:49, 29 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support moves. "Mayors of Finsbury" is the plural form of a specific proper noun title (Mayor of Finsbury) and so the word mayor should be capitalized... Unlike, for example, of List mayors in the United Kingdom, where the word mayor is used generically and should be lower case. Blueboar (talk) 19:06, 29 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: List of Mayors and Lord Mayors of Manchester and List of mayors of Kingston upon Hull should be made consistent as the latter contains Mayors & Lord Mayors. Keith D (talk) 19:09, 29 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as inconsistent with all other "List of mayors of" on the site. WP:CONSISTENCY wants us to be consistent with the majority of similar articles, not with one recent, questionable change. The nomination logic here is backward. It's better for us to be mostly consistent and have a rare exception than to fork usage directly in half. But there is no exception to be made here; it should be "List of lord mayors of", per MOS:JOBTITLES: Do not capitalize job titles except when attached to a name, or used as a shorthand for a specific individual. This is general practice in English: "The President [shorthand for "US President Trump"] visited the Queen [shorthand for "Queen Elizabeth II"], and also met two dukes and number of lords and ladies [general categorizers, not shorthand for anyone]". It isn't "also met two Dukes and ... Lords and Ladies". Use in categories is, obviously, a general categorizer, not a stand-in for a specific person. The RM result at Talk:List of Lord Mayors of Birmingham is an incorrect interpretation of naming policy and style guidelines, and should be taken to WP:MR, or just re-RMed after a while.
Also opposed to moving them to "Mayors of" titles; we use "List of" for a reason; we want it clear that WP:SAL pages are such; they're a different kind of article. [I don't personally agree with that philosophy, but it is the site-wide consensus for over a decade.] — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 04:14, 30 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose – If "consistency" is what you seek, the easier way to get there is to follow the advice of the Manual of Style. This rationale for this move request seems silly. Dicklyon (talk) 05:39, 30 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

But the move request does follow the advice of the manual of style... MOSCAPS states that we should capitalize: "When the correct formal title is treated as a proper name (e.g., King of France...)"; i.e. "Mayor of Finsbury" should be capitalized for the same reasons we capitalize "King of France". Blueboar (talk) 10:06, 30 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

But it's "kings of France"; as a generic plural, that'a common noun (in Modern English). About two generations ago, it was common to capitalize in such a case, and many others, e.g. "He taught at both Harvard and Cornell, and has mostly being doing speaking engagements for a living since his work at the Universities". No one capitalizes "universities" in this construction any longer. It was originally capitalized for the same reason as "Kings of France", and the plurals have lost the caps in the same time span for the same reason. There are innumerable other cases ("a tense call between the presidents of the US and Mexico", etc., etc.). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:14, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Ok... we agree on "Louis XIV was King of France", because the title "King of France" is a specific title... but you say that "both Louis XIV and Louis XV were Kings of France" is inaccurate because "kings" is generic? I don't agree. In this case, "Kings of France" is no less specific than "King of France"... it is simply the plural form for the specific title. Plural ... not generic. And so I hold that it should be capitalized. Blueboar (talk) 23:40, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Plural is less specific, by very definition. Not going to argue with you about it further. The plural-caps you like are fast disappearing from the language. This makes them a mixed, occasional use, which makes them optional stylization, so we drop it as we drop all optional stylization, especially a) capitalization, and b) anything that can be interpreted as non-neutral, undue emphasis. This is standard WP operating procedure. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 00:07, 1 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Strong oppose—There are so many reasons this would be undesirable; some of them have been mentioned by editors above. Blueboar's theories about what is generic and what is titular, and how this might relate to capping, are most interesting and plain weird. This makes me suspicious that BarrelProof has been indulging in wholesale capping of every job-name in WP's text. He took a job as Garbage Collector with the local authority. Tony (talk) 05:55, 30 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The specifics of context matter... I agree that we would not normally capitalize "garbage collector" ... however... If there were a governmental official with the formal title: "Garbage Collector of Finsbury" (i.e. an elected, appointed or inherited position held by one person at any given time) then yes, we would capitalize the title "Garbage Collector of Finsbury" (as in: "Smith was elected Garbage Collector of Finsbury in 1994"). In that case, the title is a proper name, capitalized exactly the same as "President of the United States", "Governor General of Canada" or "Lord Mayor of London". Blueboar (talk) 10:33, 30 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

She was elected second prime minister of Takhstan. Tony (talk) 01:46, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Great example of why capitalization is actully needed... The sentence "She was elected second prime minister of Takhstan" is ambiguous... does it mean she was elected to an office with the title "Second Prime Minister of Takhstan" (which I would assume would be a sort of Vice President)? .... or does it mean she was the second person in history to be elected "Prime Minister of Takhstan"? Capitalization would clarify that uncertainty. Blueboar (talk) 10:14, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

MoS rule #1: Rewrite to avoid confusion or dispute. We'd actually use "She was the second person elected as prime minister of Takhstan" (though I think many who would argue for caps here, since its a reference to the office as such, in a formal way. I.e., many would write "New York City has had a lot of questionable mayors" would also write "Giuliani was elected as Mayor of New York City", yet "back when Giuliani was the mayor". Similarly, "Many American presidents have visited Queen Elizabeth II", "Trump has never met the Queen, except in his official capacity as President of the United States", "Trump, as they say, is 'not my president'". Another debate for another time (actually, I think it was about a week or two ago at MOS:CAPS). Anyway, even MoS-haters have to just give up on this plural-caps thing; other style guides like Chicago and New Hart's also lower-case in this circumstance. It's difficult to find any that don't; the two I can recall are both business style guides ("a productivity improvement across three Departments"); they are extremely prone to overcapitalization.

But capitalization ("second Prime Minister") does not actually clarify, anyway. This is not paper and we have MOS:Accessibility to keep in mind. Screen readers will not indicate any difference between "prime minister" and "Prime Minister" so the caps alone cannot be treated as sufficient distinction. I really wish people would tape the large, all-caps word ACCESSIBILITY to the tops of their monitors so they think about it periodically while editing. It really doesn't even take much practice to write in an accessible manner, especially if you have crappy eyesight from having been at a computer for too many years. ;-) WP:REUSE is also a factor; our material can be repurposed for any medium, including audiobooks. A clearer sentence is always preferable, even at the cost of an extra word or three, than a sentence that will not be clear except to fully-sighted people doing traditional reading.
— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 00:07, 1 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

ACCESSIBILITY is a red herring... consider King of France vs. king of France... screen readers won't pick that up, and yet MOSCAPS explicitly says to capitalize "King". Yes, we all know that over-capitalization exists... and yest, we should be wary of it... but we have to avoid "throwing the baby out with the bath water". We should not over react by de-capitalizing job titles that should remain capitalized... such as "Mayor(s) of X". That little word (of) can make all the difference. Blueboar (talk) 11:56, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. There has been support to move it to the lower case forms. SMcCandlish summarises it quite well. Anarchyte (work | talk) 10:02, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There may have been support... but there was also quite a bit of opposition... especially "after the fact" opposition. See the recent discussions at WT:MOSCAPS. Remember that "Consensus can change" (I'm not saying that consensus has changed... that is what we are trying to find out with this RM... however, there has certainly been enough discussion to raise the question of whether it has changed.) Blueboar (talk) 10:14, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Blueboar, do you have a Private Secretary? How many Garbage Collectors does the city employ? An Engineer is required. I'm starting to think it's all boosterim to be capping these items. Tony (talk) 09:41, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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.