The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

No consensus. There is a clear absence of consensus for the moves proposed. BD2412 T 04:30, 14 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• 1978 NHL Amateur Draft → 1978 NHL amateur draft
• 1977 NHL Amateur Draft → 1977 NHL amateur draft
• 1976 NHL Amateur Draft → 1976 NHL amateur draft
• 1975 NHL Amateur Draft → 1975 NHL amateur draft
• 1974 NHL Amateur Draft → 1974 NHL amateur draft
• 1973 NHL Amateur Draft → 1973 NHL amateur draft
• 1972 NHL Amateur Draft → 1972 NHL amateur draft
• 1971 NHL Amateur Draft → 1971 NHL amateur draft
• 1970 NHL Amateur Draft → 1970 NHL amateur draft
• 1969 NHL Amateur Draft → 1969 NHL amateur draft
• 1968 NHL Amateur Draft → 1968 NHL amateur draft
• 1967 NHL Amateur Draft → 1967 NHL amateur draft
• 1966 NHL Amateur Draft → 1966 NHL amateur draft
• 1965 NHL Amateur Draft → 1965 NHL amateur draft
• 1964 NHL Amateur Draft → 1964 NHL amateur draft
• 1963 NHL Amateur Draft → 1963 NHL amateur draft

– Per WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS we should use lowercase since sources mostly do so. WP is not in the business of promoting descriptive terms to proper names, and we don't cap just because specialist/official sources cap their own stuff; we look to general and independent sources to see what's treated as a proper name. I had these fixed once already based on what seemed like incontrovertible evidence from sources, plus the fact that other widespread over-capitalization in these articles suggested that they had never been looked at for style issues; but there was pushback and reverts, so now we discuss. Dicklyon (talk) 23:03, 26 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose- MOS:SPORTCAPS indicates that specific events are to be capitalized. Additionally, sources from multiple countries, that are in the business of reporting on hockey in general have traditionally capitalized these. This would be in keeping with just correct english usage that encyclopedic publications maintain, as hockey encyclopedias like Total Hockey, Britannica Book of the Year, and others do.18abruce (talk) 23:19, 26 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  And I am curious why this does not include the Entry Draft, which was capitalized all over the news today.18abruce (talk) 23:29, 26 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Maybe that's why. I don't see how MOS:SPORTSCAPS applies. I did a trademark search and didn't find anything. Dicklyon (talk) 01:48, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  What are you seeing in MOS:SPORTCAPS about "specific events"? I'm not finding it. Quote it for us please? Dicklyon (talk) 02:46, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  "Specific titles and events (or series thereof) are capitalized: WPA World Nine-ball Championship, Tour de France, Americas Cup. Generic usage is not: a three-time world champion, international tournaments." -DJSasso (talk) 18:37, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't think the draft was a sporting event; more of a process really. Dicklyon (talk) 02:58, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  They sell tickets to the fans and fill up an area (or a hotel back then) and televise the whole thing. Seems like an event. Different than a game itself of course but most certainly an event, but I do see your point. -DJSasso (talk) 10:57, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  What about the NHL Entry Draft articles (1979–present)? Best not to have 1963 to 1978 & 1979 to present, different in capitalisation. GoodDay (talk) 00:08, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Dicklyon (talk) 01:48, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Not good enough. If you're not going to include the Entry Draft articles in this RM? Then I will oppose any page moves. GoodDay (talk) 02:35, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm glad to hear that you'd be in favor of lowercase for all. But we don't have to do them all at once, or we'd never get anything done. Dicklyon (talk) 02:44, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  WP:THEREISNODEADLINE. Not only is it not required to fix all similar titling problems all at the same time, attempting to do so has a strong tendency to make matters worse by resulting in "no consensus" outcomes that result in cyclical rehash for months and years. I've learned this the hard way. It is much more practical to take a closely related subset of articles and move them, then apply the same successful reasoning to another subset of articles that are closely related to each other but less closely related to the first group, and so on. This tends also to tease out all of the concerns and arguments that can come up about particular cases being different in some way. If you do a lot of large-scale RMs, you very quickly learn that having a list of 20 or 100 articles in an RM is going to result in a failed RM if even a small fraction of them raise "this one is special" concerns; people will oppose the entire RM to "protect" a single exceptional case, rather than do a "Support, except for ..." !vote that is more specific.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:10, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Support The evidence presented clearly indicates that the titles are not "consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources" and do not meet the criteria per MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS. MOS:SPORTCAPS sits within MOS:CAPS and should not be interpreted to override the more general advice therein - viz, specific titles and events are capitalised as indicated by consistent capitalisation in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources. Perhaps this needs to be clarified. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 00:16, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  More specific advice in a guideline almost always overrides the more generic. There is a reason we have more specific advice for a given situation. -DJSasso (talk) 18:46, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  And the drafts are not a title or event where the game is played, which, by considering the examples given, is the intent of the advice. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 00:26, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  No where in the sentence does it say the game has to be played, it says events, not games. These are events that happen at a specific time and location which have an official name as shown by the fact the league capitalizes it and tickets are even sold to fans to come and watch. -DJSasso (talk) 10:56, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Except more specific advice in one place that enjoys little or no consensus beyond a single wikiproject is generally overridden and done away with in favor of a more general approach. This is why we have WP:CONLEVEL policy, and why so few wikiprojects have been able to maintain any kind of "our topic is magically special and different" exceptionalism, about anything, over the long term. WP in 2005 was much more inter-topically inconsistent than it is today.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:10, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. Please: our own MOSCAP, Chicago and Oxford manuals of style, and the strong tendency in English, tell us to minimise unnecessary capping. We have consistency across fields to think about too on en.WP (the guideline says not to cap). And also important is that it's easier to read and looks better without updownupdownupdown. Tony (talk) 02:28, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Actually the guideline specifically says that we should cap to quote "Specific titles and events (or series thereof) are capitalized: WPA World Nine-ball Championship, Tour de France, Americas Cup. Generic usage is not: a three-time world champion, international tournaments." -DJSasso (talk) 18:45, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose as per MOS:SPORTCAPS as they are proper nouns that should be capitalized as they are names. There are certainly times when its referring to the generic term, but there are also times where it is referring to the proper noun as the titles of these articles would be. This is similar to the case of saying "Trump was the President of the United States" or "Obama was a president." -DJSasso (talk) 18:30, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  ... they are proper nouns that should be capitalized as they are names. is a circular arguement. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 00:28, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - In my own writing I would tend to cap drafts if the date were included...but if the majority of sources do not cap (specifically when the date is included), then I'd go with that per MOSCAPS guidance. Primergrey (talk) 02:41, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  @Primergrey: If you can take book search snippets as a proxy for reliable sources, we can count. Through 1970, there are no book hits for "Year NHL amateur draft", capped or not; also none for 1974 and 1976.  Here are hit counts for years where the term (with year) is found, LC:UC. 1971 3:1, 1972 1:2, 1973 1:1, 1975 1:0, 1977 2:0, 1978 3:0 (LC:HC). Total is 11 lowercase, 4 uppercase. Dicklyon (talk) 22:57, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For this topic it would be more pragmatic to do a newspaper search, as the drafts would be covered in media that way. They aren't often written about within books, especially on a yearly matter. Kaiser matias (talk) 23:04, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Newspapers used lowercase usually. Dicklyon (talk) 21:39, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Support per MOS:CAPS (especially MOS:DOCTCAPS) and WP:NCCAPS. This phrase is not consistently capitalized in independent, reliable sources, and the main (and first) point of both guidelines is that such cases should not be capitalized on Wikipedia, either. The fact that hockey and football fans like to capitalize it, as do sports journalists, is simply a typical WP:Specialized-style fallacy.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:11, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - as we have Year Entry Draft articles. GoodDay (talk) 21:14, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Dicklyon (talk) 22:54, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose as per 18abruce and DJSasso. Kaiser matias (talk) 22:57, 30 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  @Kaiser matias: See above; I answered you about newspapers, which generally used lowercase. Dicklyon (talk) 21:39, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Support - Upper case doesn't even seem to get 50/50 here. Primergrey (talk) 00:41, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per MOS:CAPS: Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization Proper nouns are capitalized to differentiate from a different meaning from plain English. Think Super Bowl vs "super bowl". The meaning of "NHL amateur draft" reads the same whether it's capitalized or not. As a reference, The New York Times generally follows this convention in their sports coverage.[1] (As an aside, I'm surprised to learn that MOS:CAPS has verbiage like consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources, when many MOS discussions here say it doesn't matter what other MOS's say. Then why are we subservient in this case?)—Bagumba (talk) 11:31, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  It's not about what other style manuals do (though our MOS is modeled on various modern style manuals), but rather about how to use sources on the topic to see if it's treated as a proper name. Nothing subservient there, just source-based. Dicklyon (talk) 23:56, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  While it's easier than defining our own standards on what a proper noun is, it's also different than our approach at MOS:JOBTITLES, which is very specific and does not rely directly on their appearance in sources.—Bagumba (talk) 02:49, 3 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose since this is the correct name for the event. Anyone who will try to change my mind – do not bother. – Sabbatino (talk) 11:51, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, correct name, but not a proper name, as you can see by the fact that most sources don't cap it. Dicklyon (talk) 23:56, 2 June 2020 (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. No further edits should be made to this section.