Looney Pyramid Games Wiki talk:Capitalization

Original discussion

I think we need to decide on how we want to handle case in page names. The Wikipedia standard is to have pages have only the first letter of the first word capitalized, unless the page is about something which is normally capitalized. MediaWiki automatically makes the first letter of links uppercase, so you can write a link like [[this]] or like [[This]] and they will go to the same page. Some of the main pages on this wiki break the Wikipedia rule, and have all words uppercase (Existing Games, Games In Progress, Icehouse In General). This makes it hard to ingrate those names into a sentence, like the following: "If you want to find out about Icehouse In General, you can find that information on this site". I think that maybe we should move those to Existing games, Games in progress, and Icehouse in general, and provide redirects from the original pages so everything else will still work.

Lambda 19:31, 27 Apr 2005 (GMT)

Okay, I was going to go ahead and do that, but after the first one, I realized it looks bad. Instead, I think we should leave them with Title Case, and folks who want to refer to them with lower case should use the link|text format. (e.g. Here is a link to stuff about [[Icehouse In General|Icehouse in general]]. Oh, though it should be noted that I have made dozens of redirect pages for weird caps or common misspellings. :) Oh, also, Games in progress has been moved to Games Under Development for clarity. --Tophu 19:46, 27 Apr 2005 (GMT)

Ugh. Someone has been systematically uglifying the case of articles. Since he likes 'em in "Initial case" and I think they look so much better in "Title Case," could we get some more opinions here? I'll volunteer to fix them. --Tophu 15:55, 5 May 2005 (GMT)

Since we don't have our own page of naming conventions yet (feel free to start it), I defer to Wikipedia's recommendation. They may not have the best ideas for this site, but they've been playing this game a lot longer than we have.

If it's important that a particular link have a capitalized word in it, there's nothing wrong with that. (Playing with Pyramids is a book title, for example.) In the absence of a reason to cast aside Wikipedia's amassed wisdom, let's not require any more capital letters than necessary.

Ahem. One last thing. Let's not start calling names, even "Someone". Thanks. -- Rootbeer 17:32, 5 May 2005 (GMT)

Well, I certainly prefer the "Initial case", because in a wiki, the title of a page is simply a word or phrase that you might use in a sentence. Basically, the idea is that you should be able to just enclose any word or phrase in a sentence with [[ and ]] and get a link to the correct article. The software automatically makes the first letter uppercase so you can do the same thing at the beginning of a sentence without having problems, since the title matcher is case sensitive. Basically, the idea is that the most common case should be that you write normal English prose, and enclose certain words and phrases in brackets, and everything should just work. Since I use Wikipedia a lot, I've gotten so used to this system that it seems much nicer to me than the Title Case system. And actually, if you look in the Encyclopedia Britannica, they use an all lower-case system, except for proper names and actual titles, which is what Wikipedia really should be using if MediaWiki supported it while still doing the right thing for the beginnings of sentences. — Lambda 16:41, 5 May 2005 (GMT)

Okay. Here be the official admin pronouncement from on high (yeah, right, but here's what I'd prefer): those who feel strongly that they should have a link appear one way or the other in a page that they are writing should use pipe syntax in their link, like [[Existing Games|existing games]], not run around changing page titles. Until some MediaWiki hacker gets the collective head out of the collective ass and makes links optionally case-insensitive, that seems best. - misuba 19:07, 5 May 2005 (GMT)

Since this is debate spans several different pages, I propose that we move all of our discussion to IcehouseOrg_talk:Capitalization, and once we have come to some sort of consensus, write up the exact rules on IcehouseOrg:Capitalization. — Lambda 23:35, 5 May 2005 (GMT)

More discussion from Martian (T|t)heme

For consistency of capitalization, shouldn't this be Martian theme? To me, Martian Theme looks like it belongs in a list next to Martian Chess (that is, it looks like the name of a game, or another proper noun). I'd like to change it. Does anybody feel strongly about this, either way? Rootbeer 17:23, 30 Apr 2005 (GMT)

Yes. When the capitalization issue first came up, I looked at changing a number of Title Case articles to Initial case. It looks bad. Just like how I noticed right away that "Martian Theme" had turned to "Martian theme." It sticks out like an ugly thumb. :( Tophu

I guess we just have a fairly strong difference of opinion here. I agree with Rootbeer, Martian Theme looks like a title, which it is not. Really, I think the heart of our issue is that some people are looking at names of wiki pages as titles, while others are looking at them as entries in an index, dictionary, or encyclopedia. Read Wikipedia more, the title case will grow on you. Or just try inserting more links into your text; you'll find it's a pain to always write [[Foo Bar|foo bar]], and looks ugly to say "put the Foo Bar on top of the topmost piece". — Lambda 21:53, 5 May 2005 (GMT)

To amplify Lambda's remarks, I'd like to point out that, unless you've memorized Which Link Names Need Extra Caps and which ones don't, you have to look up every multiple-word link before you know how to type it. That's a big negative impact on usability of the Wiki.

I will have no problem living under whatever capitalization scheme emerges on this site. I merely hope it's a rule that's easy to memorize, with few exceptions. -- Rootbeer 22:31, 5 May 2005 (GMT)

For what it's worth, I vote for only capitalizing when it makes sense. Ex. Proper names, Titles, etc. I don't like having Random Concepts being capitalized. -JEEP 23:06, 5 May 2005 (GMT)

Whatever

Personally, I think this is the silliest argument ever. The person who creates the entry gets to decide how it's capitalized, and there should be no redirectors that create duplicate entries in the list of pages. Yes, it does mean that you have to look and see how a page's name is capitalized before you can link to it, but life is hard sometimes. While we're at it, can we get rid of the silly typo-redirectors? Seriously.

In my defense, I created the typo-redirectors (e.g. peice->piece) because of my naievety when it comes to wiki-land. I should have simply fixed the typo. My un-wiki brain thought "Hey, somebody else might make this spelling mistake. I can make it work preemptively." Now that I understand the wiki concept better, I see that they are not relevant.--Tophu 18:49, 9 May 2005 (GMT)

Okay, it's Friday and I'm cranky, but really we could be arguing about whether Zarcana or Gnostica is the better game and you people want to argue about CAPITALIZATION? --Eeyore 16:11, 6 May 2005 (GMT)

You're right that this particular argument's outcome is a sesame seed.

I humbly submit that how we resolve disputes around here is a much bigger issue. Indeed, neverending, if the wiki is to be any kind of success. This sesame seed is merely the first. -- Rootbeer 16:59, 6 May 2005 (GMT)

I Yield

Okay. It seems I was the only one to have a strong opinion in favor of Title Case links. I'll yield to popular opinion and happily adopt the standard "lowercase second and subsequent words" wiki convention. As someone said (I'm not name-calling, Rootbeer. I just don't remember who said it.), I was looking at page names as titles, and it irked me when the page titles didn't look like titles. With my wiki-awakening comes new understanding. Now that I am enlightened, I'll not be bothered by case. :) --Tophu 19:01, 9 May 2005 (GMT)