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Unknownlight Since: Aug, 2009
#1: Jun 3rd 2011 at 4:19:06 PM

So, the current official rule is that the titles for trope pages should follow the proper English capitalization rules. So, for example, the trope In the End, You Are on Your Own appears like so, compared to previously looking like In The End, You Are On Your Own.

However, I've still been seeing a lot of people complaining about the new, proper way, and giving quite a few reasons why they support the old way. So, if the mods don't mind, of course, I'd like to have a crowner on this, just to see what tropers prefer. (By the way, this is only for trope titles. Work titles should stay properly capitalized.)

Okay, starting with the current system, the obvious advantage about it is that it's, y'know, proper English. It's entirely consistent with how people expect titles to look like. It's nice and proper and uniform. It's really the "default" state that any changes should be compared to.

The main disadvantage/annoyance that a lot of people seem to bring up around here is that it looks rather strange when someone use a trope as part of a sentence ("While you appreciate the help your friends have given, you know that In the End, You Are on Your Own and you'll have to finish the battle yourself" /thing I made up) as they say it looks like the person's randomly capitalizing words in their sentence.

The other disadvantage, and in fact the reason I'm making this topic right now in the first place, is that just recently a friend of mine, who I just introduced TV Tropes to, tried to link to the trope above by typing IntheEndYouAreonYourOwn and then wondered why the link looked so screwy (I had to show him that you have to capitalize all words when making a Wiki Word, it didn't matter what the capitalization of the page was. He understood it then, of course). I figure, if he made this mistake, this might become a common mistake to make as more pages get converted and more new tropers arrive.

Anyway, the main pro of the old system, where everything's capitalized, often is said to be the fact that you can easily skim through an article looking for tropes, knowing that everything that's fully capitalized is the specific name for for an actual trope and not just a pothole to something else. Some people say that this helps teach new users the correct name of tropes (I disagree, but whatever).

The disadvantage/annoyance of this system is obvious: while some people complain about the random capitalization of the new system, others say it looks even worse for words like "a" and "the" to be capitalized within titles. It's against the rest of the English language and makes the site look amateurish.

Anyway, there's probably more pros/cons about each I forgot about. Still, I think seeing troper's opinions on this could be useful.

edited 3rd Jun '11 4:20:38 PM by Unknownlight

FastEddie Since: Apr, 2004
#2: Jun 3rd 2011 at 4:45:21 PM

I don't a think a vote on whether or not to use proper English is needed. We will use proper English. It is not really up for debate.

Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
Micah from traveling the post-doc circuit Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#3: Jun 3rd 2011 at 5:49:53 PM

Er, actual proper English would for the most part be "don't capitalize trope names at all", which doesn't seem to be on the table. We're definitely doing something idiosyncratic; it's just a question of which idiosyncratic thing is the right one.

132 is the rudest number.
FastEddie Since: Apr, 2004
#4: Jun 3rd 2011 at 5:58:27 PM

A trope name is a proper noun, in text. The title of a work is a title. As long as trope titles aren't like titles, it is all pretty simple.

Because people have a really, really hard time getting that a trope name is not the title of an article, but the name of a thing, we have stuff to fix. Either the trope name, or the places where these bad, title-like trope names are used.

edited 3rd Jun '11 5:58:45 PM by FastEddie

Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
Micah from traveling the post-doc circuit Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#5: Jun 3rd 2011 at 6:07:33 PM

Why do you say that a trope is a proper noun? Tropes seem pretty obviously to be improper nouns to me — they don't describe unique things, but instances of classes of things.

132 is the rudest number.
Madrugada Since: Jan, 2001
#6: Jun 3rd 2011 at 7:00:02 PM

Hmm. I have to say the "confusing editors about how to wikiword" thing is a rather thought-provoking one. I'd personally prefer to see trope names either capitalized appropriately for how they are used in the sentence or capitalized as a correctly-formatted wikiword as the situation demands. Thus: "Expect to run into an Artifact of Doom somewhere along the way..." or "There may be an Artifact of Doom to be found..."

edited 3rd Jun '11 8:00:41 PM by Madrugada

TotemicHero No longer a forum herald from the next level Since: Dec, 2009
No longer a forum herald
#7: Jun 3rd 2011 at 7:50:19 PM

This seems to be a good basic guide for this stuff.

To use an example brought up earlier: Mind over Matter is valid, because "over" is a preposition.

Aesthetically I don't like how it looks, but it is proper English.

edited 3rd Jun '11 7:53:39 PM by TotemicHero

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Madrugada Since: Jan, 2001
#8: Jun 3rd 2011 at 8:02:02 PM

I just realized that you can't even force a correct wikiword capitalization to display with a pothole if the term is capitalized at all.

TotemicHero No longer a forum herald from the next level Since: Dec, 2009
No longer a forum herald
#9: Jun 3rd 2011 at 8:04:24 PM

Yep, doesn't work.

[down] [[MindOverMatter Mind Over Matter]] gives us:

Mind over Matter

edited 3rd Jun '11 8:07:47 PM by TotemicHero

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Unknownlight Since: Aug, 2009
#10: Jun 3rd 2011 at 8:05:14 PM

[up][up] Sorry, I didn't catch what you mean there. Could you give an example?

edited 3rd Jun '11 8:05:26 PM by Unknownlight

JackAlsworth Since: Jul, 2009
#11: Jun 3rd 2011 at 8:07:13 PM

It's like what Totemic Hero is trying to do: "Mind Over Matter" wikiworded is Mind over Matter.

Unknownlight Since: Aug, 2009
#12: Jun 3rd 2011 at 8:07:14 PM

Seriously? How could that be?

Mind over Matter

This needs to be fixed.

edited 3rd Jun '11 8:17:01 PM by Unknownlight

TotemicHero No longer a forum herald from the next level Since: Dec, 2009
No longer a forum herald
#13: Jun 3rd 2011 at 8:08:37 PM

Mind Over Matter

Hah! I cheated the system! tongue Double potholes.

Jokes aside, I sincerely hope no one actually tries this on a real page, because then I would be annoyed at myself.

edited 3rd Jun '11 8:23:24 PM by Madrugada

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
TotemicHero No longer a forum herald from the next level Since: Dec, 2009
No longer a forum herald
#15: Jun 3rd 2011 at 8:14:37 PM

[[MindOverMatter Mind Over Matte]][[MindOverMatter r]]

Key is that Eddie set it up to look for a particular string of characters. Don't give it the string, and it can't tell what you're doing.

Like I said, I don't recommend doing this on an actual page. It's impractical to begin with, and bypassing the coding via double potholes or whatever method will probably earn you the wrath of the fast one.

edited 3rd Jun '11 8:18:48 PM by TotemicHero

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Unknownlight Since: Aug, 2009
#16: Jun 3rd 2011 at 8:21:04 PM

Mind O­ver Matter

Hah! Figure that one out! XD

edited 3rd Jun '11 8:26:39 PM by Unknownlight

TotemicHero No longer a forum herald from the next level Since: Dec, 2009
No longer a forum herald
#17: Jun 3rd 2011 at 8:23:18 PM

I'd advise against trying to joke around too much with this. Pointing out flaws in PMWiki code isn't bad, but let's not get too carried away.

And sticking an extra space at the end isn't hard to do either.

edited 3rd Jun '11 8:25:13 PM by TotemicHero

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
troacctid (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#18: Jun 3rd 2011 at 8:23:54 PM

Well, I'm firmly on the side of capitalizing all the words. It looks better and it matches the way it's typed.

edited 3rd Jun '11 8:25:37 PM by troacctid

Unknownlight Since: Aug, 2009
#19: Jun 3rd 2011 at 8:27:47 PM

[up][up] Yeah, right.

Actually, I didn't put a space at the end, though that's much easier. tongue I used soft hyphens instead.

Edit: Though, honestly, Eddie shot this topic down in his first post, so unless he does let us discuss it, this topic is currently topic-less.

edited 3rd Jun '11 8:30:45 PM by Unknownlight

Heatth (X-Troper) Relationship Status: In Spades with myself
#20: Jun 3rd 2011 at 8:34:02 PM

[up][up]I agree. Furthermore, it makes more obvious it is a trope name and not a pothole. If the trope is not capitalized in all words, I would hover it with the mouse to see where it is linking to.

TotemicHero No longer a forum herald from the next level Since: Dec, 2009
No longer a forum herald
#21: Jun 3rd 2011 at 8:34:13 PM

Well, people could always bring up custom titles to be run through the guidelines in the link I provided, in case there's any confusion.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)
Wulf Gotta trope, dood! from Louisiana Since: Jan, 2001
Gotta trope, dood!
#22: Jun 4th 2011 at 12:01:21 AM

In all honesty though, it looks pretty bad having them mixed. I can accept wanting to use proper grammar, but when you've got some in all caps because they're only two words (or don't use... a, an, the, if, over, by....) and some not because they're longer and do, it makes it look like we couldn't decide what format to use. Personally, I think a compromise (that everyone would hate) like to have them in asscaps or something, but that would have the downside of making it look like we're yelling at the audience.

edited 4th Jun '11 12:02:29 AM by Wulf

They lost me. Forgot me. Made you from parts of me. If you're the One, my father's son, what am I supposed to be?
Killomatic TURN OFF THAT LIGHT! from Loli Funtime Playhouse Since: Oct, 2010
TURN OFF THAT LIGHT!
#23: Jun 4th 2011 at 7:39:00 AM

But the inconsistency is part of proper English grammar. Though it was a pretty retarded idea on part of whoever came up with it.

Regulated fun - the best kind! I don't make the rules, just enforce them with an iron fist.
Jeysie Diva of Virtual Death from Western Massachusetts Since: Jun, 2010
Diva of Virtual Death
#24: Jun 4th 2011 at 8:03:37 AM

[up][up] IIRC that's correct according to standard title capitalizing guidelines. Titles are in all capitals if there's three or fewer words in the title. Once you have four or more, then you start following the variance guidelines.

Edit: Dangit, ninja'd.

edited 4th Jun '11 8:03:52 AM by Jeysie

Apparently I am adorable, but my GF is my #1 Groupie. (Avatar by Dreki-K)
Killomatic TURN OFF THAT LIGHT! from Loli Funtime Playhouse Since: Oct, 2010
TURN OFF THAT LIGHT!
#25: Jun 4th 2011 at 8:07:37 AM

I thought only the first and last word always get capitalized.

Regulated fun - the best kind! I don't make the rules, just enforce them with an iron fist.

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