Talk:Non-abelian group

[Untitled][edit]

The article is inconsistent. Should it be non-abelian (as in the title), or nonabelian (as in the corpus)? 128.93.66.52 (talk) 12:01, 8 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Searching for "non-abelian" and "nonabelian" it seems the first variation occurs somewhat more often. It seems like there is not really a clear convention on what to use here, but I think we should at least be consistent within this article and use the first style (as in the title), so I will change it to be that way. Clmul (talk) 21:07, 31 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

On 23 December 2023, it was proposed that this article be moved to Non-Abelian group. The result of the discussion was not moved.

Requested move 23 December 2023[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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. per consensus. (closed by non-admin page mover) – robertsky (talk) 05:09, 30 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Non-abelian group → Non-Abelian group – based on proper name Niels Henrik Abel; sources use capitaliazation. Johnjbarton (talk) 18:48, 22 December 2023 (UTC) This is a contested technical request (permalink). – robertsky (talk) 01:03, 23 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Abelian and non-abelian are clearly treated as common-noun adjectives in either a majority or an equal number of sources: [1][2] — Amakuru (talk) 19:37, 22 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree they are both represented, but the tie breaker is the man's name. Johnjbarton (talk) 23:13, 22 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't set too much store by that - there are plenty of common words which are derived form people's names - including such things as silhouette, saxophone, nicotine, diesel and others. But there is no obligation to capitalise such words. The real tie-breaker is the same as anything else - MOS:CAPS - which advises us to only use title case for terms that are "consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources". Something which has been shown not to be the case here. Cheers — Amakuru (talk) 11:52, 27 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. A change like this needs a consensus first, and such a large scale change needs a strong concensus. It should not be done by one individual going from topic to topic making the change. And there is no rule in English that anything derived from a person's name is capitalised ("watt" for example); if anything getting to be lowercased is the evidence of higher regard for the person. Imaginatorium (talk) 09:05, 23 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: Uh, which "sources use capitalization"? Capitalizing "abelian" is quite unusual. Artin's Algebra (1991) consistently uses "abelian" and "nonabelian". Dummit & Foote's Abstract Algebra (1991) and Lang's Algebra (2002) both use "abelian" and "non-abelian". These are all standard undergraduate and graduate texts; if "Abelian" were a common spelling, I would expect to see it there. Bernanke's Crossbow (talk) 05:31, 29 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose – my experience from undergrad mathematics is that it's a common, uncapitalised, noun. Sceptre (talk) 22:03, 29 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.