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: page moved. Strong arguments have been made on both sides, but the numerical consensus in favor of moving is not outweighed by the opposing arguments. I submit that the decisive argument, most clearly articulated by Cinderella157, is that this article currently describes something too general to merit capitalization in itself, and while such grammatical norms can be trumped by a clear preponderance of capitalized instances outside Wikipedia (and not just in scholarly media), there is, at present, insufficient evidence thereof. SchreiberBike summarized the situation well: What is and is not a proper noun is hard to define around the edges, so we fall back on n-grams and modern paganism is certainly capitalized much less than recognized religions.... [Moreover,] this article does not describe paganism in the way that those who say "I am a Pagan" describe their beliefs. It describes it as a group of religions. That could change. I hope most of us will agree that this is a borderline case, so may we be especially quick to assume good faith in all those involved, including myself. Arbitrarily0 ^(talk) 18:10, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Modern Paganism → Modern paganism – per MOS:ISMCAPS. This suggestion failed to achieve consensus support in an RM discussion five years ago, but the fact remains that paganism is not a single identifiable organized religion or even a single identifiable set of specific beliefs. Rather, as the article says, modern paganism is "a collective term for religious movements" of a certain variety. Collective terms are things that describe a category, and thus are common nouns, not proper names. There isn't any single authoritative definition of what modern paganism exactly is. As the article says, "Most scholars describe modern Paganism as a broad array of different religions, not a single one", and there is a "lack of core commonalities in issues such as theology, cosmology, ethics, afterlife, holy days, or ritual practices", and there is "no consensus about how contemporary Paganism can best be defined". Wikipedia's convention is to use lowercase in such situations. See also Germanic paganism, as noted in the 2017 discussion. Please also see the related ongoing RM at Talk:Neopaganism in Scandinavia#Requested move 14 August 2022. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:29, 23 August 2022 (UTC) — Relisting.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:34, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support Per MOS:ISMCAPS. As defined by the article itself, modern paganism is a collective term or category name and by definition, not a proper name. Caps are not necessary per MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS. Use sentence case in an article title and no capitalisation when used in prose. Cinderella157 (talk) 23:39, 23 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• It can be misleading to say that Modern Paganism is not a proper name. While Paganism is often applied as an over-arching term for a related group of religions (Wicca, Heathenry etc), there are also those who identify solely as Pagans, and their religion as Paganism. In those cases at least, Paganism is undeniably a proper noun. This undermines the MOS:ISMCAPS argument. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:42, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support per MOS:ISMCAPS and Cinderella and source stats. Dicklyon (talk) 01:57, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• This particular Ngram confuses the fact that the term paganism is used in two distinct ways. Historically, it was a Christian term applied to non-Christians; since at least the mid-20th century it has been adopted as a term for a modern religious phenomenon. As this article makes clear, the standard practice among scholars of the topic is to use the lower-case pagan for the former, and the upper-case Pagan for the latter. Assembling a collection of all appearances of "paganism" on the Ngram will inevitably pool both uses of the term, and thus is not suitable evidence for how we should title the article on Modern Paganism specifically. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:38, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Strongest possible support - per ISMCAPS. This is long overdue. Primergrey (talk) 02:03, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per MOS:ISMCAPS and the description of the topic in the article ("Most scholars describe modern Paganism as a broad array of different religions, not a single one"). Graham (talk) 02:26, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per MOS:ISMCAPS.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:20, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per MOS:ISMCAPS. Not really a proper name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:22, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per above. Laurel Lodged (talk) 12:32, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support finally someone proposes this. Super Ψ Dro 15:04, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Maybe they got tired of waiting for you to do so. Dicklyon (talk) 23:24, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support, this is not about a single religious organisation but instead a general set of beliefs. JIP | Talk 21:04, 24 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(This doesn't seem like a particularly Southern Hemisphere topic, but it looks like it is snowing in August!) —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 16:49, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I do believe it is. With a little more time, it could develop into a blizzard. Cinderella157 (talk) 23:04, 25 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(Comments made after the initial close):

• I would have opposed the change. The decision to adopt the uppercase "Paganism" was not made haphazardly, but was chosen a few years ago when Midnightblueowl rewrote the article and significantly improved its quality. The choice followed academic usage: in the academia, "Paganism" with the uppercase initial has been consistently used to designate "modern Paganism" (regardless of whether it is conceived a single new religious movement or a group of different new religions), distinguishing it from "ancient paganism", always written with the lowercase initial.--Æo (talk) 14:12, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Æo is right. This was a bad move for Wikipedia's coverage of modern Paganism. No consideration at all seems to have been given regarding what the WP:Reliable Sources actually say; and they are fairly unequivocal that "modern Paganism" with a capital P is the most appropriate option. This decision needs to be reversed. Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:47, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Oppose I agree withÆo and @Midnightblueowl. The only academic journal that exclusively focuses on research in this area, The Pomegranate, lists Pagan in its author guidelines as something to be capitalized: "Capitalize Pagan when referring the various polytheistic religious traditions, whether contemporary or ancient. Lowercase pagan when it is used to mean merely “irreligious"" (their author guidelines, page 2). This is how the term Pagan is used in the scholarly community. FULBERT (talk) 20:18, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Would this not be an instance of WP:SSF? Graham (talk) 20:37, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Only as much as the opposing view is an instance of WP:BIAS. Multiple examples of academic reference have been provided. A clear line has been drawn to accepted capitalization use in other cases. What hasn't been discussed is the struggle that members of the Pagan community have been undertaken to receive recognition in the various Manuals of Style (AP, Chicago, etc) and received exactly the sort of response in this discussion; it's not a proper noun because we say it's not.[1] Meanwhile, Britannica has decided to capitalize Pagan and Neo-Pagan[2][3]. Darker Dreams (talk) 03:46, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Per MOS:FAQ:

Although Wikipedia contains some highly technical content, it is written for a general audience. While specialized publications in a field, such as academic journals, are excellent sources for facts, they are not always the best sources for or examples of how to present those facts to non-experts. When adopting style recommendations from external sources, the Manual of Style incorporates a substantial number of practices from technical standards and field-specific academic style guides; however, Wikipedia defaults to preferring general-audience sources on style, especially when a specialized preference may conflict with most readers' expectations, and when different disciplines use conflicting styles.

What your comment seems to lay out is that "general-audience sources on style" such as the AP Stylebook and The Chicago Manual of Style reject the capitalization of paganism, and that most (not all, but most) sources that consistently capitalize the term are academic sources that specialize in the study of neopaganism. This seems like a textbook case of the specialized-style fallacy. Graham (talk) 05:39, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's a spectacular straw man. It ignores the fact that you can do the same thing with non-academic sources, including in both journalistic and popular style. Further, it ignores that the major difference between those who consistently capitalize and those that don't is a minimal attempt to respect the real people practicing the religion under discussion and, specifically, their strongly expressed desire to be treated with the same respect as other religions and families of religions. Darker Dreams (talk) 13:09, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Relisting comment - following a closed request at Wikipedia:Move_review/Log/2022_October, I have relisted this discussion. Please present relevant information here, with evidence as to how it complies with our policies, and then those can be analysed and a consensus reached one way or the other. Pinging participants from the prior RM as well as those who later objected to the closure: @Cinderella157, BarrelProof, Dicklyon, JIP, Super Dromaeosaurus, Laurel Lodged, Necrothesp, SMcCandlish, Graham11, Primergrey, Midnightblueowl, Æo, and Darker Dreams:. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:34, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose The noun "Paganism" should be capitalized. MOS:ISMCAPS must be interpreted in view of WP:RELIABLE and WP:SCHOLARSHIP arguments. Paganism is used with capitalization in contemporary academic literature referring to a defined group of religions (just like "Hinduism," rather than a "movement" inside a larger religion- ie, offshoots of an existing religion like evangelicalism and fundamentalism or even Pentecostal and Calvinist.), and capitalization is consistent with the Voices from the Pagan Census^[1] research and even an acknowledgement in the U.S. Census statistics on religion^[2]. The Pomegranate, which is the only peer-reviewed journal devoted to the subject of Pagan studies, uses of the capital in its editorial policy, while almost all academic studies published over the last decade have also employed this upper-case usage (for instance Pizza's Paganistan, Aitamurto and Simpson's Modern Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Central and Eastern Europe, Rountree's Contemporary Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Europe, Doyle White's Wicca). A few of the earlier studies, such as Hutton's 1999 work The Triumph of the Moon, do use the lower-case term but that no longer appears to be the case; Hutton himself has always used the upper-case "Pagan" in more recent publications. While it may not be compelling, the upper-case is heavily used among Pagans themselves and many Pagans find the lower case spelling offensive, because it does not accord them the same respect as Christians, Buddhists, etc. While this is not exactly the same as WP:BLP, some consideration should probably be afforded in an effort not to WP:BIAS the discussion. (comment heavily borrows from arguments by @FULBERT and @Midnightblueowl in previous move request) Darker Dreams (talk) 12:39, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Nah. It is not capitalized in a strong majority of independent, reliable sources, and that's our standard.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:04, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I spend more than 2500 characters citing references and the first response is "nah, nothing of significance." That definitely makes it feel like there's a serious partner in finding consensus. Darker Dreams (talk) 20:52, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Paganism is used with capitalization in contemporary academic literature referring to a defined group of religions (just like "Hinduism," rather than a "movement" inside a larger religion- ie, offshoots of an existing religion like evangelicalism and fundamentalism or even Pentecostal and Calvinist.) As a "group of religions", wouldn't the appropriate comparator be Indian religions (which we don't capitalize, except for the first word because it comes from the word India) rather than Hinduism? Graham (talk) 19:55, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  By Indian religions, do you mean the ones sometimes also termed Dharmic religions or Indic religions? (taken from the lead of Indian religions, all capitalized.) It's also worth noting that The word Hindu is an exonym and while Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world, many practitioners refer to their religion as Sanātana Dharma. (Taken from the lead on Hinduism.) Moreover; "Hinduism includes a diversity of ideas on spirituality and traditions, but has no ecclesiastical order, no unquestionable religious authorities, no governing body, no prophet(s) nor any binding holy book; Hindus can choose to be polytheistic, pantheistic, panentheistic, pandeistic, henotheistic, monotheistic, monistic, agnostic, atheistic or humanist. According to Doniger, "ideas about all the major issues of faith and lifestyle – vegetarianism, nonviolence, belief in rebirth, even caste – are subjects of debate, not dogma."" (Taken from the definitions section of the Hinduism page.) If we were just talking about European native/traditional religions you might be on point (which, let's also remember, doesn't actually includd Christianity or anything Abrahamic), except that would already get capitalized for the same reasons as Indian religions. I appriciate the desire to find a logical basis for a distinction most people have internalized based on their WP:WORLDVIEW. But, I'm not sure how people are going to ground this except by simply dismissing the validity of other's religion. Darker Dreams (talk) 20:52, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  By Indian religions, do you mean the ones sometimes also termed Dharmic religions or Indic religions? (taken from the lead of Indian religions, all capitalized.) Indic is a proper noun, and I don't know that we should be capitalizing dharmic either. Many sources don't, in fact, capitalize it (e.g., the Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore and Folklife).

  And while no one is disputing that Hinduism takes numerous forms, it is nonetheless generally regarded as a religion (in the singular). Graham (talk) 05:30, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Yet Dharmic is consistently capitalized in that article when applied as an adjective in a specific way... like we understand there's a difference between Dharmic religions and dharma. Meanwhile, please identify the unifying feature Hinduism posesses that Paganism lacks. The more I've looked into the "singularity" of Hinduism, the more it appears to be an externally imposed historical presumption. Darker Dreams (talk) 13:09, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  "Nah. It is not capitalized in a strong majority of independent, reliable sources, and that's our standard." I do not believe that this is in the slightest bit true, so I would caution any readers unfamiliar with the topic from believing claims such as this. Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:09, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support. It's not a proper noun so it should not be capitalized per our general MoS formatting rules. Rreagan007 (talk) 00:30, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Oppose per Midnightblueowl and others, and per the overwhelming uppercasing of the n-grams, (how can editors say that the lowercasing is relevant given the ngram, what is it, chopped liver?). Randy Kryn (talk) 14:23, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Because this is a formatting issue, not a common name issue. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:29, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Even with lowercase "modern" the uppercase holds a clear advantage in the ngram measurement. This only adds to Midnightblueowl's excellent research and assertions. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:35, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We don’t capitalize things that have a “clear advantage”; we only capitalize if there is a substantial majority, as you well know. This is close to 50/50. Wallnot (talk) 13:04, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And this, a fairer use of the Ngram, shows that the odds are by far in favour of the capitalised P. Midnightblueowl (talk) 17:28, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong Oppose: It is the proper name of a specific category of new religious movements which are distinct from pre-Abrahamic "paganism", and it should be capitalised much like "Hinduism" is capitalised and may be interpreted as either a single religious view or a group of religions, some more related to each other, other less. As already written above, by myself and by others, the distinction between "paganism" (ancient) and "(Neo)Paganism" (modern) has been established within academia. Notice that since Midnightblueowl's thorough rewrite some years back, the article has been altered in many of its parts, and the definition in the lede which originally followed that of the 1999 Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of World Religions (p. 794: "Neo-Paganism: any of several spiritual movements that attempt to revive the ancient religions of Europe and the Middle East...") is now extremely generalised to "historical pagan beliefs of pre-modern peoples". Notice that the Merriam-Webster encyclopedia itself consistently capitalises "Neo-Paganism", while uses lowercase "paganism" in its entries referring to the pre-Abrahamic religions.--Æo (talk) 16:27, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: The above phrase "the proper name of a specific category of ..." is a bit odd. If you look at the definitions of what a proper name and a common noun are, something that identifies a category is not a proper name. A proper name is something that identifies a single entity, not a class of entities. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 19:21, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    In the article "proper noun/common noun" I also read: Some proper nouns occur in plural form (optionally or exclusively), and then they refer to groups of entities considered as unique. The suffix -ism is usually not pluralised (-s), but it can be intended as plural, referring to a more or less narrow category of new religious movements. It is certainly not a common noun as general as continent, planet, person, corporation, etc. Æo (talk) 19:54, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    • If one looks at the fuller context of the article, proper noun, it also states: Proper nouns are normally invariant for number: most are singular, but a few, referring for instance to mountain ranges or groups of islands, are plural (e.g. Hebrides). Modern pagan religions are not invariant for number. It would also state that: A [true] proper name may appear to have a descriptive meaning, even though it does not ... There is much confusion about what is actually a proper name rather than a name phrase that is being capitalised for emphasis or significance (importance) - see MOS:SIGNIFCAPS. Cinderella157 (talk) 07:40, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

      Hindu, Hindus, Hinduism, Sufi, Sufism, Sufis, Sunni, Sunnis, Christian, Christians... I'm going to need some more context to understand what point you're trying to make by saying Pagan should be "invariant for number." Pagan doesn't change for other reasons that other (capitalized) religious names don't. You don't use a different form for an eclectic Pagan practitioner or discussion of Druidism, Heathenry, Wicca, or other members of the family of Pagan religions. Compare: a believer in christianity/christian is typically a member one of the christian denominations, whether orthodox, catholic, or protestant, but is by definition a member of one of the abrahamic faiths. Darker Dreams (talk) 09:16, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

      It may be worth pointing out that "druid" is consistently lowercased in the Wikipedia article on that subject. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:17, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

      But Druidry (modern) does capitalitalize Druid throughout. Again, there are relevant differences in usage. Darker Dreams (talk) 20:30, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Genus capitalization[4] indicates capitalizing categories is a thing, just as one example. Darker Dreams (talk) 20:00, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    • Capitalising genera is a thing but not because it is a proper name but because it is the scientific convention to do so. Unless you are suggesting that "modern paganism" is the genus of organisms (and I don't think you are) then this is a red herring. Cinderella157 (talk) 09:22, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

      And capitalizing religions is a convention as well. Ultimately, this whole conversation is "how much respect do we give the living practitioners of existing religions." On some level everything else is a red herring. Darker Dreams (talk) 20:30, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Capitalizing as a marker of “respect” would be a clear violation of MOS:SIGNIFCAPS. Ultimately, this whole conversation should be about whether or not modern paganism is consistently capitalized by a substantial majority of reliable sources. Wallnot (talk) 21:03, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: The first three paragraphs of our article do not describe the same thing as the opposers above do. If they are right that there is a modern religion called Paganism, that is different from what the Wikipedia article says. SchreiberBike | ⌨  16:37, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The opposers aren't necessarily arguing Paganism is a single religion. I, for example, view it as a family of religions. Much like Abrahamic religions and Dharmic religions. I'm coming to think Hinduism is a family of religions, but Western understanding of it is so misaligned / misinformed that we think of it as a single religion. On the other hand, there are individuals for which Paganism is the unifying, singular term for their religion, including Oberon Zell. But, either way, Hinduism is probably one of the closest reference points to how Paganism should be handled. Darker Dreams (talk) 19:52, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Abrahamic" and "Dharmic religions", which are rarely referred to as "Abrahamism(s)" and "Dharmism(s)" (even more rarely than the former), and "Hinduism" to a lesser extent, are the most accurate categories to which "(Neo)Paganism" can be compared as to its semantic function. We could say that the semantic value of "(Neo)Paganism" stays somewhere in-between "Hinduism" and "Abrahamic" or "Dharmic religons". Æo (talk) 20:03, 1 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose per evidence by Randy Kryn and Darker Dreams. We have used ngram as the golden standard for producing exactly this kind of evidence (typically, in downcasing direction) so let's apply it here. Comparison with Hinduism is particularly apt. No such user (talk) 10:11, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I agree we should use the ngram as we do elsewhere. The ngram Randy linked omitted the all lowercase form (“modern paganism” as opposed to “Modern paganism” and “Modern Paganism”) and so showed skewed results. But the correctly formed ngram shows it should be lowercase; MOS:CAPS allows for capitalization only where a word or phrase is consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of sources. The ngram shows that it is close to 50/50 cap/lowercase. That’s not consistently capitalized, nor is it a substantial majority. Wallnot (talk) 13:09, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Your argument is also skewed, Wallnot, because you include "modern paganism" and "Modern paganism" together, yet then only compare them against "Modern Paganism", omitting "modern Paganism" altogether. When you actually look at all four possibilities on the Ngram together, look what you get. A very clear, unambiguous majority for the upper-case Paganism. If you maintain that we should go by the Ngram, then surely you should be backing those who oppose this change. Midnightblueowl (talk) 17:13, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  The standard is not a clear, unambiguous majority; it is consistent capitalization in a substantial majority, i.e., a supermajority, which is not the case even in the ngram you supply. The analysis is not based solely on the most recent year of data, and the capitalized form did not have even a bare majority until very recently. The fact that it has a majority at all is a product of the fact that modern paganism will always be capitalized in a heading. Below, Amakuru provides an ngram superior to either of ours showing that, when you take care to omit headings, it is even more clear that modern paganism fails the CAPS substantial majority test. Wallnot (talk) 17:33, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong Oppose (as I had not formally declared this in my earlier comments). As previously pointed out, the capitalised P for Pagan when talking about the modern religious grouping is now virtually ubiquitous in the highest quality Reliable Sources. As has been noted, academic sources almost uniformly now use the capital letter; the Encyclopedia Britannica uses the capital letter; Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of World Religions uses the capital letter; the one and only peer-reviewed journal devoted to Pagan studies uses the capital letter; modern Pagans themselves typically use the capital letter and often find the use of the lower-case offensive (although there are a few exceptions to this); Google Ngrams indicate that the capital letter has been dominant for a number of years. To these already-mentioned examples I would add a long list of other Reliable Sources that use the capital letter, from specialist religion-themed outlets like the World Religions and Spirituality Project ([5]; [6]) and Religion Dispatches ([7], [8]) to mainstream media sources such as the BBC ([9]), The New York Times ([10]), and The Guardian ([11]). If we are following the WP:Reliable Sources, and especially the WP:Scholarship, then we must keep the capitalised P, for this spelling is the WP:COMMONNAME.

The claims of those promoting "Support" also need to be scrutinised, because some of them are specious. Most of the comments given by "Supporters" of a change do not indicate a good understanding of the subject matter; I suspect that some of those lending "Support" have confused paganism as a generic Christian concept for non-Christians with Paganism as a modern religious identity. As this article currently points out, the general rule among scholars of the topic (with a few exceptions) is to render the former in lower case and the latter in upper case. I also think it is wrong to say that Paganism is not a proper noun. Sometimes Pagan is used as a general term for people whose primary self-identification is as a Wiccan, Druid, Heathen etc, but in many other cases there are people who identify as Pagans, and only that (they are sometimes called "Eclectic Pagans" in the literature). In those cases, Pagan is undoubtedly a proper noun. On that front, the whole argument for invoking MOS:ISMCAPS falls apart, and with it the main case for "Support". Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:04, 2 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support - having been previously involved with closing the MRV and relisting this discussion, I'll now flip over and express an opinion on the merits of the move itself. The principal argument against the move, being made since the relisting, seems to be that "academic" or "high quality" sources prefer the capitalised version, even if evidence shows "ordinary" sources using lowercase. But as noted above, Wikipedia does not typically defer to specialist or academic sources when choosing titles - our mission is to be a general-purpose encyclopaedia, accessible to the masses, not any sort of specialist publication. Wikipedia:Specialized-style fallacy, even it it's only an essay and not guideline/policy, does sum this point up quite nicely. That being the case, our research should consider the whole body of sourcing, and the ngram is a tool we regularly use for that purpose. Unlike the ngram linked above, which only compares "Modern Paganism" with "Modern paganism", ignoring the alternative "modern paganism", I have performed a full case-insensitive search, and I've also added the word "is" on to the end. The reason for that is that this should filter for uses where the term appears in running prose rather than as a title (which is more likely to be title case even in publications which would use sentence case elsewhere). The results are here: [12] and we can clearly see that "modern Paganism" and "modern paganism" are virtually neck and neck as of 2019, a marked difference from 20 years previously when "modern Paganism" had a large lead. This is in keeping with a larger global trend in recent years to avoid unnecessary capitalisation. So, with no clear lead for the capitalised version, MOS:CAPS - which requires a "substantial majority" of sources to be capitalised - advises that we should default to the sentence case variant. Thus "Modern paganism" as a title, with "modern paganism" the usage in running prose. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 13:25, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I keep seeing Wikipedia:Specialized-style fallacy wielded as policy when it explicitly is not, as you acknowledge. I will continue to point out that WP:BIAS is an equally valid point of view and concern regarding the subject, and that the adherents of the religion have repeatedly and consistently asked to be treated with something they view as a basic point of respect (and been ignored).[13] Wild Hunt (the linked citation) is, by the way, one of those "non academic" (journalistic) sources that uses the capital P along with Patheos. Now, I can only assume these also fall under "specialized-style fallacy," which goes towards my growing concern that this quasi-policy serves little more purpose than reinforcement of systemic biases by rejecting reliable but "specialist" sources in favor of generalists that by definition have less understanding of a subject by declaring it "technical." At some point we have to be responsible for recognizing it doesn't matter how often a word is getting capitalized by AP or Routers. This decision is about how we respect living people. While it doesn't apply, there are reasons that WP:BLP exists. And organizations are slowly moving this way. I've linked Britannica capitalizing now, for example. Capitalized Paganism was fine and stable for 5 years. Now we're going to decide that Wikipedia wants to join the "screw what the pagans ask for" camp and probably be back in 5 years when this growing group that has succeeded in getting recognition by governments gets the chicago manual of style to notice there's an issue? Darker Dreams (talk) 21:10, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I explicitly stated above that the specialized-style fallacy is not a policy, but that it is representative of the wider point that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a specialist publication. There is a policy that makes that very point though, at WP:NOTACADEMIA. This states that "Article titles should reflect common usage, not academic terminology, whenever possible". THe important thing is to consider all reliable sources when making the determination, not just those that you've deemed high-quality. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:11, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Supplementary comment having Voted! support prior to relisting and considering the arguments made since relisting. Arguments made to oppose the proposition are:

• "Modern Paganism" is a proper name phrase.

• "Modern Paganism" is not inherently a proper name phase since it is descriptive of pagan religions in the modern era. This article's lead would state: ... [it] is a collective term for religions influenced by the various historical pre-Christian beliefs ..., further reinforcing that it is being used as a category or common noun phrase. Consequently, there is no inherent reason to capitalise this but we should then defer to MOS:CAPS (through WP:NCCAPS) if there is (as there now is) dissent over whether the phase is a proper name.
• The specific guidance within MOS:CAPS is at MOS:ISMCAPS: not [to] capitalized unless derived from a proper name. For example, Islam, Christianity, Catholic, Pentecostal, and Calvinist are capitalized, while evangelicalism and fundamentalism are not. The guidance would therefore tell us to use lowercase.
• If one chooses to ignore this specific advice, we then revert to the general advice of MOS:CAPS in the lead: ... only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia.

• To resolve this, one needs to review a randomly selected statistically significant sample of sources. Any small set of sources presented by an editor are usually going to be subject to selection bias even if this is not the intention. Sources of a particular type (eg news sources or academic sources) can also exhibit a selection bias in respect to the larger set of potential sources and general usage.
• WP:SSF would caution us against giving undue weight to academic sources. Yes, it is an essay and not a guideline but its advice is verifiable through citations and it is in good standing. It provides an objective basis to avoid giving undue weight to a particular type of source generally.
• Both sides of this of this discussion would acknowledge the utility of ngrams as evidence addressing the criteria of the general guidance at MOS:CAPS, though some skill is still required in gathering and interpreting ngram evidence.

• The first issue is that ngrams do not distinguish usage in prose (where sentence case is used) from usage in headings, captions, references and like where title case commonly used. It is common to make an allowance of 10% for title case usage when viewing raw data or to refine the search with additional terms such as Amakuru has done here to indicate usage in prose.
• The second issue is the threshold of usage that indicates capitalisation is necessary per the guidance. This is clearly not a simple majority of cases but a supermajority of cases. Past discussions would suggest >80% for raw data (noting a 10% allowance for title case usage) or >70% where there is refinement to indicate usage in prose. This is quite generous (in favour of capitalisation) since terms such as Christianity and Hinduism are capitalised essentially all of the time and a confidence limit much closer to 100% would not be unreasonable by comparison with these.
• Neither of the two ngrams presented by Randy Kryn give a true picture of usage that would address whether "modern paganism" is a proper name. One must reasonably consider all of the different permutations of case for the two word phrase as here. One can take a simple view and consider just the most recent data or apply a greater degree of smooting as here. Regardless, observation would indicate that Modern Paganism represents about 50% of usage compared with the other two common permutations modern Paganism and modern paganism, while Modern paganism is most likely modern paganism when used at the start of a sentence. It is clear from this mixed usage that Modern Paganism does not reach the threshold to be considered a proper noun phrase. This is perhaps even clearer in the ngram evidence of Amakuru, which is a refinement for usage in prose.
• A survey of several pages from JSTOR here and Google Scholar here, looking at the search summaries, would indicate a similar distribution, while Google Books is of little direct use, since the term really isn't appearing in the search summaries per here (though I believe the results from Google Books might vary between regions.

• Yes we do tend to capitalise religions eg Hinduism and Buddhism because they are derived from what are inherently proper names. To make such an argument for modern paganism is non sequitur. To argue that there are multiple practices in Hinduism and modern paganism, therefore they are similar and therefore, if Hinduism is capped, so should modern paganism ignores the reason why Hinduism or Abrahimic (of Abraham) is capped - not because they are religions but because they are derived from proper names.
• To argue from WP:BLP is too long a bow to draw.
• To argue respect would fall to MOS:SIGNIFCAPS and/or WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. It is an emotive argument. The guidance is to rely on objective source base criteria to determine capitalisation. To argue from WP:BIAS is a strawman if one adheres to objective source base criteria. To not do so would be more like WP:BIAS.

• I can see no strength in the arguments offered to opposed. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:13, 4 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Cinderella157: I'm not one of those of the "respect" argument, which in my opinion does not apply here. However, names of religions are generally capitalised in English, regardless of whether they are based on proper nouns or not. MOS:ISMCAPS says: Names of organized religions (as well as officially recognized sects), whether as a noun or an adjective, and their adherents start with a capital letter. Unofficial movements, ideologies or philosophies within religions are generally not capitalized unless derived from a proper name. For example, Islam, Christianity, Catholic, Pentecostal, and Calvinist are capitalized, while evangelicalism and fundamentalism are not. Here there is a flaw in the MOS rule. "Evangelicalism" and "fundamentalism" are indeed not religions but approaches to the way of being religious; the others in the list are religions. However, neither "Islam", nor "Catholic", nor "Protestant" are based on proper nouns: the first means "surrender (to God)" in Arabic, the second means "all-whole" (katholikos) in Greek, the third is an archaic Latinate form of "protester". Æo (talk) 19:01, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Æo yes, we do generally capitalise the names of religions, when these are considered proper names of themself or based on proper nouns as when I was referring to Hinduism and Abrahimic. The question is to resolve whether this (modern paganism) is a proper name. What a proper name is, is generally not well understood. There is a general perception but false equivalence between capitalisation (orthography) and proper name (grammar) which ignores that we often use capitalisation to emphasise or distinguish a phrase in much the same way that we might use quote marks or italics. We might then justify using caps by asserting that the name labels [describes] something that is unique, specific or significant. Such assertions ignore that specificity can equally be achieved by a common noun phrase (common name). Specificity of referent is a property of proper names but not an exclusive, defining property. A true proper name is an arbitrary label which (intrinsically) tells us nothing about the referent. A proper name may appear to have a descriptive meaning, even though it does not ... If it had once been, it may no longer be so ... Just as for the example of Newtown, in the proper noun article, proper names will often have a derivation (etymology). Catholic may mean all-embracing. While the Catholic Church may once have been, it no longer is all-embracing. Catholic refers to the religious denomination with the Pope at its head. Protestants aren't protesting in the streets and very few Anglophones would associate Islam with its Arabic meaning. Because of the mixed understandings about what a proper name is, WP reverts to empirical evidence to resolve disputes. Of the various terms you raise immediately above and below, please see this ngram evidence.[14][15][16] One can see that the religions we would capitalise per the advice at MOS:ISMCAPS are near always capitalised - quite unlike modern paganism. There is no apparent inconsistency as you would assert. The rules of grammar in conjunction with this article, the advice at MOS:ISMCAPS and the general advise at MOS:CAPS along with ngram evidence all indicate a conclusion for a move to modern paganism. Cinderella157 (talk) 01:10, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Very well put. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 16:25, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support—We don't cap communism; nor should we cap paganism. Tony (talk) 01:29, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Still support, though I see I chimed in a few weeks ago above. Note that the evidence shows some trend toward capitalization in recent years, but nowhere near the "consistently capitalized" threshold in MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS. So we use lowercase. Dicklyon (talk) 03:29, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support We don't cap communism; nor should we cap paganism. Laurel Lodged (talk) 09:36, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Tony1 & Laurel Lodged: Regarding your argument here, do you realise that "Catholicism", "Protestantism", "Eastern Orthodoxy", "Pentecostalism", etc., are not based on proper names and yet they are always capitalised?--Æo (talk) 14:35, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. And "Christianity" isn't either, since "Christ" is not a proper name but a title.--Æo (talk) 14:38, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support per Cinderella157. Wallnot (talk) 17:00, 6 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
• Support but I'm torn. I generally believe that people should be able to call themselves what they want and if a person says their religion is Pagainsm, then perhaps we should accept that it is the name of their religion and hence capitalize it. I read online that many people state "I am a Pagan".
  However aside from the fact that they are not mainstream, very little binds the pagan movements together.
  The question for me is "Is modern [p]Paganism a proper noun according to Wikipedia's standards?" The opening paragraphs of our article before this discussion (link), do not, to me, describe a religion, but a collective term. Even the current version (link), which has been edited since this discussion started 23 August (link), does not conclusively describe a religion to me. To quote, from the latest version, modern [p]Paganism is described as "a collective term for religions" and says "contemporary Pagan movements are diverse, and do not share a single set of beliefs, practices, or texts".
  What is and is not a proper noun is hard to define around the edges, so we fall back on n-grams and modern paganism is certainly capitalized much less than recognized religions.
  Wikipedia capitalizes less than many other sources, so I fall back on that and say "in the case of a tie", lower case. And finally, this article does not describe paganism in the way that those who say "I am a Pagan" describe their beliefs. It describes it as a group of religions. That could change. SchreiberBike | ⌨  17:01, 7 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]